Outpatient growth moved the Lehigh Valley Health Network to rethink building a new hospital in the Hazleton, Pa., area, according to an article on the Standard Speaker website.
The system instead will modernize a present hospital — including expanding the emergency department and expand services at an ExpressCARE clinic.
“We made a little bit of a right turn,” John Fletcher, president of Lehigh Valley Hospital-Hazleton said in the article. “We were going to build a new hospital in the Hazleton community. Healthcare has changed so much, and it continues to change. We have seen a shift of patients we traditionally cared for in the hospital moving to an out-patient setting.”
One feature of the hospital modernization is creating more private rooms. The modernization will also include the establishment of a rapid assessment unit in the emergency department.
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