{"id":127820,"date":"2024-02-27T17:06:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T22:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=127820"},"modified":"2024-02-27T17:06:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T22:06:31","slug":"star-community-health-celebrates-five-years-of-providing-care-to-underserved-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=127820","title":{"rendered":"Star Community Health Celebrates Five Years of Providing Care to Underserved Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Featured Image: Grandmother Robin Geiger watches as case manager Terry Gregg, RN, talks with her twin grandchildren, Sunny and Tizlam Gordon,\u00a0at Star Community Health Pediatrics in Easton.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Social Worker Saves Man\u2019s Life by Identifying Life-Threatening Condition and <\/em>Staff Diagnoses Child\u2019s Developmental Disorder and Arranges Specialty Care.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Star Community Health<\/strong> in January celebrated its fifth anniversary of meeting the health care needs of underserved individuals and groups in our community, including the uninsured. A\u00a0<\/strong>Federally Qualified Health Center Look Alike (FQHC-LA), Star Community provides family medicine, pediatric, women\u2019s health, dental and case management services at 12 locations in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton and four dental vans serving\u00a032 schools in Bucks, Carbon, Monroe, Lehigh and Northampton counties.<\/p>\n

Star Community Health has a diverse staff of doctors and residents from 27 countries. Providers and staff speak more than 13 languages. While Star Community Health serves more than 45,000 patients yearly, each patient is special to its staff of doctors, nurses, care managers, financial counselors, referral specialists and social workers. The Star Community Health Team develops care plans for each patient, meeting their individual needs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jose Rivera of Allentown and Star Community Health care manager Cindy Knecht, RN, MSW, reunite at Star Community Health Sigal Center in Allentown. During a routine check-in call, Knecht realized that Rivera was very ill and called the ambulance, an action that saved his life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jose Rivera, who has diabetes, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), has been coming to Star Community Health at the Sigal Center in Allentown for years. When Jose\u2019s girlfriend who managed his care, passed away about a year ago, Star Community Health social worker Cindy Knecht knew Jose could use help. She began calling him every two weeks to make sure he was doing well. During a call earlier this month, Jose told her he was very cold. He sounded off, so she called the ambulance, which took him to the St. Luke\u2019s Allentown Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a staph infection. According to the physician, if he hadn\u2019t come in, he would have died.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe saved my life,\u201d Jose said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would be alive today without her. She\u2019s on top of my appointments and always gets me what I need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robin Geiger, a 63-widow raising her twin grandchildren, has brought the children to Star since they were babies. Her granddaughter Sunny has several health and developmental conditions including attention deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and gastroenterological (GI) disorders and epilepsy. The Star Community Health staff helped to diagnose her conditions and align her with medical specialists.<\/p>\n

Sunny had her first epileptic seizure when she was less than a year old and her most recent one a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was fine, sitting at the table, and all sudden, she fell off her chair,\u201d said Robin, who had epileptic seizures starting when she was 17. \u201cI held her until the ambulance squad came and talked to her because I know you can hear during a seizure. I wanted to let her know I was there.\u201d The ambulance crew took Sunny to St. Luke\u2019s Anderson, and after a thorough evaluation, she was released.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that, Star took care of us and sent us in the right direction,\u201d Robin said. The Star team helped Robin schedule appointments with medical specialists at St. Luke\u2019s Pediatric Specialty Center in Center Valley.<\/p>\n

The Star Community Health social work Rose Schenk also helped Robin connect with community organizations and helped her apply for services she is eligible for. When her oven was broken, she even reached out to a local appliance store that gave Robin a new one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets a little hectic for me,\u201d Robin said. \u201cThank goodness for Star Community Health because I don\u2019t know where I would be without them. I think my head would be spinning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star Community Health sees patients through every stage of life \u2013\u00a0while in the womb, childbirth and delivery, newborn and new mom care, well child, adolescent, adult to elderly. It even provides home visits when needed. It\u00a0has nine specialty practices:\u00a0Podiatry, Psychiatry, Dermatology, Colorectal, Vascular Services, ENT, Rheumatology, Urogynecology and Endocrinology, which includes diabetes management. Star Community Health has some of the best diabetes control statistics in Pennsylvania and\u00a0is ranked in the second decile nationally for Federally Qualified Health Centers.<\/p>\n

About Star Community Health<\/strong><\/p>\n

Star Community Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center (\u201cFQHC\u201d) affiliated with the St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network. Star Community Health provides high-quality, community-based, patient-directed primary care health services to more than 45,000 patients yearly at 12 locations in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton. Services include primary\/family medicine, women\u2019s health, pediatrics and dental services and four dental vans treating students in 32 schools. It also assists patients in assessing community health services. As an FQHC, it focuses on meeting the needs of underserved individuals and groups within our community, including uninsured and underinsured people, those experiencing homelessness, agricultural workers, public housing residents and veterans.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872,\u00a0St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 20,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 300+ outpatient sites.\u00a0 With annual net revenue of $3.4 billion, the Network\u2019s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke\u2019s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania.\u00a0 In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school campus.\u00a0 It also operates the nation\u2019s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 45 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 400 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke\u2019s, a member of the Children\u2019s Hospital Association, opened the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.<\/p>\n

SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s\u00a0five-star<\/em>\u00a0ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction.\u00a0 It is both a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades\u00a0Top Hospital<\/em>\u00a0and a Newsweek World\u2019s\u00a0Best Hospital<\/em>.\u00a0 The Network\u2019s flagship University Hospital has earned the\u00a0100 Top Major Teaching Hospital<\/em>\u00a0designation from Fortune\/PINC AI 11 times total and eight years in a row, including in 2023 when it was identified as THE #4 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY.\u00a0 In 2021, St. Luke\u2019s was identified as one of the\u00a015 Top Health Systems<\/em>\u00a0nationally.\u00a0 Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the\u00a0Most Wired<\/em>\u00a0award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information. \u00a0The Network is also recognized as one of the state\u2019s lowest cost providers.<\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nSam Kennedy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featured Image: Grandmother Robin Geiger watches as case manager Terry Gregg, RN, talks with her twin grandchildren, Sunny and Tizlam Gordon,\u00a0at Star Community Health Pediatrics in Easton. Social Worker Saves … Continue reading Star Community Health Celebrates Five Years of Providing Care to Underserved Patients<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/star-health.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/127822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}