The Lehigh Valley Health Network will break ground
Thursday on a $93.6 million Specialty Care Pavilion project that will allow for
its Bethlehem, Pa., hospital to deliver babies for first time in its 54-year
history.
The four-story pavilion at LVH-Muhlenberg, scheduled to
open in July 2017, is expected to handle about 2,000 births a year.
A Bethlehem Hospital is planning to open a maternity ward
in its planned $94 million Specialty Care Pavilion.
The opening of the maternity ward comes following a
two-decade stretch in which many Pennsylvania hospitals, primarily in the
Philadelphia region, opted to get out of the baby-delivery business because of
escalating malpractice insurance rates for obstetricians and inadequate
reimbursement rates by private and government insurance programs.
Between 1997 and 2012, the number of acute-care hospitals
in Philadelphia with maternity wards dropped from 19 to six.
Brian Nester, Lehigh Valley Health Network’s president and
CEO, said the health system’s decision to expand obstetrical care to
LVH-Muhlenberg was in response to requests from community members in
Northampton County and the Bethlehem area for obstetrics and newborn services
that allow women to have their babies closer to home.
LVH-Muhlenberg’s Specialty Care Pavilion will also house
an inpatient rehabilitation center that will provide short-term, intensive,
hospital-based therapy to patients following a serious illness, injury or
procedure.
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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