{"id":128149,"date":"2024-03-06T19:01:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T00:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=128149"},"modified":"2024-03-06T19:01:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T00:01:06","slug":"st-lukes-employee-shares-her-own-book-for-read-across-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=128149","title":{"rendered":"St. Luke\u2019s Employee Shares Her Own Book for Read Across America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo Caption<\/strong>: Paula Stoneback reads to children at Quakertown Elementary School.<\/em><\/p>\n

Children at Quakertown Elementary School had a special treat during Read Across America week. Not only were they read to, but they also heard the book from the author herself, Paula Stoneback, of Green Lane.<\/p>\n

Stoneback was one of more than 100 St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network (SLUHN) employees who participated in Read Across America week, March 2-6, which is celebrated to promote literacy and aims to encourage reading while educating people about its benefits. Stoneback, a Senior Financial Analyst at SLUHN, has written four children\u2019s books. She read her book, Suzie Q Buckaroo, Sleepover at the Zoo, Part 1, to elementary classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a wonderful experience going out to the schools to meet children and read to them,\u201d said Stoneback, who has participated in Read Across America with SLUHN for the last six years. (During COVID, Read Across America was held virtually.) This is the first year Stoneback was asked to read her own book to the children, and she was delighted to do so.<\/p>\n

As a reader, Stoneback said the children always have wonderful questions for her and are especially interested in what it\u2019s like to be an author, she said. \u201cMany raise their hands and say they want to be authors, too,\u201d said Stoneback, who encourages them to write their ideas down. \u201cI tell them you\u2019ve got to get it out on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stoneback has been employed by the accounting department at St. Luke\u2019s for eight years. She handles the financials for Monroe Hospital, SLETS, Clinical Trials, Gift Shops, and the Fitness Centers. Prior to joining SLUHN, Stoneback was a wedding photographer and had her own business for 20 years. \u201cI honed my writing skills with a successful blog that was written about each wedding,\u201d she said. She retired from the business when she came to SLUHN but had always had a desire to write. \u201cI thought I would write mystery novels,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I stumbled on to writing children\u2019s books in 2018.\u201d Her first book was for children 7-12, North Pole East. \u00a0Her second book, Mighty Madison, Dreams Do Come True, was for younger children. Both of those books were illustrated by Parker Simpson.<\/p>\n

Stoneback has since written a Part 2 to Suzie Q Buckaroo, Sleepover at the Zoo. Stoneback illustrated both Suzie Q books, which also are for younger children, herself. All of her books are available on Amazon. Stoneback will sign books for any SLUHN employees who ask.<\/p>\n

For this year\u2019s Read Across America celebration, St. Luke\u2019s Department of Community Health partnered with 26 schools throughout the region.<\/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. Read 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

 <\/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":"

Photo Caption: Paula Stoneback reads to children at Quakertown Elementary School. Children at Quakertown Elementary School had a special treat during Read Across America week. Not only were they read … Continue reading St. Luke\u2019s Employee Shares Her Own Book for Read Across America<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128150,"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-128149","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\/Paula-Stoneback.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128149"}],"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=128149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/128150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}