{"id":128085,"date":"2024-03-04T20:17:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T01:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=128085"},"modified":"2024-03-04T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T01:17:08","slug":"read-across-america-at-st-lukes-childrens-hospital-and-partner-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=128085","title":{"rendered":"Read Across America at St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital and Partner Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caption: Read Across America Week kicked off with some fun with books and more at St. Luke\u2019s Children’s Hospital in Bethlehem on Friday, March 1. Here Gretchen Duffy, Coordinator for Child Life Services, helps Leah Correa Cora of Bethlehem choose a book and stuffed animal.\u00a0 Leah came for a quick visit with the staff before her outpatient follow-up appointment.<\/em><\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s is celebrating Read Across America the first week of March at St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital and the Network\u2019s partner schools.<\/p>\n

Read Across America, which officially begins on the birthday author Dr. Seuss (March 2), is dedicated to literacy and aims to encourage reading while educating people about its benefits. Reading and related activities were planned throughout the day March 1 at the Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

Volunteer Margaret Place read books to the pediatric patients in the playroom and in their rooms if they couldn\u2019t attend the playroom readings. Staff also distributed age-appropriate books and stuffed animals to the pediatric patients who were hospitalized and those who came for outpatient procedures throughout the day. Dr. Seuss-themed activities also were held.<\/p>\n

Gretchen Duffy, CCLS, Coordinator, Child Life Services, said it was important for the children in the hospital to be able to participate in Read Across America just like they would have had they been at day care or school. \u201cOne of our goals at our Children\u2019s Hospital is to normalize our environment as much as we can,\u201d she said. \u201cAllowing children to participate in activities like these helps bring a sense of normalcy to their hospital stay. Many schools are celebrating Read Across America this week and we wanted our kids to feel part of it and not miss out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, Duffy said, \u201cWe know that the promotion of literacy is linked to healthy development. And so we are happy to give our pediatric patients reading material to promote their development in this way.\u201d The hospital had about 30 titles to distribute. The books were for all age ranges; some were for infants, and some were chapter books. \u201cOur book selection has a heavy focus on Dr. Seuss because it is his birthday,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital is also partnering with 26 schools in our community. More than 100 St. Luke\u2019s staff will read to the Lehigh Valley\u2019s urban and rural students during the week.<\/u><\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s identifies need through our Community Health Needs Assessments and partners with our school communities throughout the year to consistently connect students, staff, and families to care, education, and resources.\u00a0Read Across America provides an opportunity to further bring our St. Luke\u2019s staff and mentoring initiatives to our schools to demonstrate commitment to the communities we serve.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital based at our Network\u2019s Bethlehem Campus in Fountain Hill opened in June 2023.<\/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

 <\/p>\n

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

Caption: Read Across America Week kicked off with some fun with books and more at St. Luke\u2019s Children’s Hospital in Bethlehem on Friday, March 1. Here Gretchen Duffy, Coordinator for … Continue reading Read Across America at St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital and Partner Schools<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128086,"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-128085","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\/03\/reads-st-lukes.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128085"}],"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=128085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/128086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}