Geisinger and St. Luke’s Teaming Up to Build New Hospital in Schuylkill County

ORWIGSBURG, Pa. – St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) and Geisinger are partnering to build a new acute care hospital in southern Schuylkill County – on Route 61 near Orwigsburg.  The fully-licensed, 80-bed hospital will include an emergency department and a full range of specialties and services.

Groundbreaking will occur this spring and the hospital will open late next year.

“Geisinger’s commitment to caring means providing compassionate, comprehensive health care to our patients close to home,” said David T. Feinberg, M.D., MBA, Geisinger president and CEO. “We know that many patients are leaving Schuylkill and Berks counties for hospital services. Our growing partnership with St. Luke’s will not only expand the range of health care services in that community but perhaps, more importantly, will offer greater convenience so that patients, including many of our Geisinger Health Plan members, will receive the care they need right where they live.” 

The three-story, 120,000-square-foot hospital will be located on Paramount Boulevard off Route 61 in West Brunswick Township near Orwigsburg.  

This is the first time in Pennsylvania that two health care systems have agreed to build and equally co-own a new hospital.

Under terms of the agreement, the new hospital will operate under SLUHN and Geisinger as a joint venture, with funding and governance shared equally between the two non-profit health systems. Bethlehem, Pa.-based St. Luke’s will build and manage the hospital. SLUHN and Geisinger, headquartered in Danville, Pa., will both contribute physicians and specialty support staff and expertise.

“The new hospital in Orwigsburg will emphasize the strengths of St. Luke’s and Geisinger, extending the best value in health care – that is, the highest quality at the lowest cost – to more residents of Schuylkill County and surrounding areas,” St. Luke’s President and CEO Rick Anderson said.

The two systems enjoy a history of collaboration, including an insurance partnership. Also beginning July 1, Geisinger's Life Flight service will provide emergency medical air transportation for the entire St. Luke’s system.

Additionally, both organizations have provided services to Schuylkill, Berks and Carbon county residents for years.  

St. Luke’s currently (since 2000) has a hospital in Schuylkill County – St. Luke’s Miners Campus. St. Luke’s Miners Campus, to which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) recently awarded its highest five-star rating, is a 44-bed acute care hospital with a Level IV trauma center and 48-bed skilled nursing facility, located in Coaldale. In Hamburg, Berks County, which is south of Orwigsburg, a St. Luke’s Care Now walk-in center and a primary care office exist. St. Luke’s Gnaden Huetten and Palmerton campuses, which recently joined SLUHN, are located in nearby Carbon County. 

Geisinger Orwigsburg’s outpatient clinic on Hollywood Boulevard offers comprehensive primary care for adults and children, including chronic disease management, laboratory, pharmacy and X-ray services. Geisinger offers primary care and specialty services, including outpatient surgery and radiation oncology in Pottsville, as well as primary care offices in Frackville and Mahanoy City.  

About St. Luke’s 
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of 14,000 employees providing services at 10 hospitals and over 300 outpatient sites.  With annual net revenue of $1.9 billion, the Network’s service area includes 10 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe and Schuylkill counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.  Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania.  In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the region’s first and only regional medical school campus.  It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 28 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 226 residents and fellows.  St. Luke’s is the only health care system in central-eastern Pennsylvania to earn Medicare’s five-star rating (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction.  St. Luke’s has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from IBM Watson Health (formerly Truven Health Analytics) repeatedly – six times total and four years in a row including 2018.  It has also been cited by IBM Watson Health as a 50 Top Cardiovascular Program.  Utilizing the EPIC electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.  St. Luke’s is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest cost providers.

About Geisinger
Geisinger is among the nation’s leading providers of value-based care, serving 1.2 million people in urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Abigail Geisinger, the non-profit system generates $10 billion in annual revenues across 134 care sites - including 10 hospital campuses, and Geisinger Health Plan, with 600,000 members in commercial and government plans. The Geisinger College of Health Sciences educates more than 5,000 medical professionals annually and conducts more than 1,400 clinical research studies. With 26,000 employees, including 1,600 employed physicians, Geisinger is among Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated economic impact of $14 billion to the state’s economy. On March 31, 2024, Geisinger became the first member of Risant Health, a new nonprofit charitable organization created to expand and accelerate value-based care across the country.  Learn more at geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.