St. Luke's University Hospital Fountain Hill ranked as one of the most socially responsible hospitals in nation, others earn high grades

St. Luke’s University Hospital in Fountain Hill was ranked the sixth most socially responsible hospital in the country and No. 1 in Pennsylvania by the Lown Institute in its 2022-2023 Hospitals Index for Social Responsibility.

Nearly all St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network-operated hospitals received an A rating for overall social responsibility, the sole exception being Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono, which received a B grade.

This year’s index is the fourth that the nonpartisan, health care-focused think tank has done, and includes more than 3,600 hospitals across the nation. Patient outcomes, equity and value provided to patients contributed to hospitals’ overall grade and ranking.

Elsewhere in the network, St. Luke’s Hospital-Monroe was 18th in the nation and second highest ranked in Pennsylvania. St. Luke’s Hospital-Warren was second highest-ranked hospital in New Jersey. The lowest-ranked St. Luke’s hospital was St. Luke’s-Anderson Campus, 367th nationally and 20th in Pennsylvania.

Sam Kennedy, spokesperson for St. Luke’s, said the network appreciates that Lown has reviewed a variety of objective data to examine hospitals from a fresh perspective.

“This is an award for and because of St. Luke’s 19,000 employees,” Kennedy said in an emailed statement. “It is a reflection of the unique culture of compassion that they sustain through their unwavering commitment to the communities St. Luke’s serves.”

LVH-Cedar Crest, the highest-ranked LVHN hospital by Lown, was 633rd in the nation and 29th in Pennsylvania. LVH-Pocono, the lowest-ranked LVHN-operated hospital, was No. 1,722 in the nation and 67th in Pennsylvania.

Brian Downs, an LVHN spokesperson, said that the network did not have access to the report or its methodology before its official release last week. He said LVHN is proud of the work it does and of its contributions to the communities it operates in.

“LVHN is dedicated to healing, comforting and caring for our patients, our colleagues and our community — as demonstrated through our numerous community partnerships, and delivery of world-class, equitable and value-based care to patients, regardless of their ability to pay,” Downs said in an emailed statement.

Downs also pointed to the fact that the American Hospital Association has been consistently critical of Lown. In an article published last year, AHA President and CEO Richard Pollack wrote that Lown’s report cherry-picks categories of community investment but ignores others, like researching life-saving treatments.

Aaron Wesolowski, AHA’s vice president of policy research, analytics and strategy, said Lown’s methodology does a poor job of recognizing all of the things hospitals and health systems do for their communities. He said the inclusivity metric only looks at Medicare patients, not the broader community.

“Hospitals treat the patients who come through their doors regardless of their ability to pay, and those who do enter the hospital may or may not match with the demographics of the Medicare population. Yet Lown penalizes hospitals whose patient mix does not match the local Medicare population,” Wesolowski said. “It also uses mortality as the only clinical outcome for measuring cost efficiency when other equally important measures are available.”

Though St. Luke’s University Hospital got an A overall for community benefit and 5 out of 5 stars for investment in the community, Lown noted that the nonprofit hospital did not provide much in the way of financial assistance to patients.

Kennedy said St. Luke’s community-based initiatives include early childhood education, school-based programming, adolescent career development, workforce development and food security as well as physical and mental health care.

Lown gave LVH-Cedar Crest a C grade for overall community benefit, with the hospital receiving only one star each for financial assistance and community investment. LVHN didn’t agree with this assessment.

“We continue to invest in our patients and community. LVHN’s total community benefit for fiscal year 2022 was nearly $760 million. Unlike many other organizations, LVHN’s annual financial information is publicly posted on lvhn.org,” Downs said.

St. Luke’s Fountain Hill campus got a D for pay equity, the difference between what the highest-paid executives and workers without advanced degrees make.

Kennedy said St. Luke’s evaluates all roles on a yearly basis to ensure it is paying fair and competitive salaries. He added that Lown’s grade for St. Luke’s executive compensation is likely skewed because it does not reflect significant salary adjustments from the past few years.

LVH-Cedar Crest also got a D grade for pay equity, and no LVHN or St. Luke’s-owned hospitals got a pay equity grade better than B.

“LVHN has been focused on attracting and retaining a top-notch workforce by rewarding our hard-working and dedicated colleagues with competitive wages and benefits,” Downs said.

LVH-Cedar Crest received only a C for patient satisfaction and was ranked 2,392 in the nation. Lown noted that patient surveys showed that hospital staff was not as responsive as many patients would like, communication about medicine often left something to be desired and the hospital could be cleaner.

St. Luke’s in Fountain Hill received a B for patient satisfaction, with patient surveys finding communication about medicine was not always ideal and that the hospital was not as quiet as some patients would like.

Lown indicated that LVHN and St. Luke’s hospitals did a good job providing patients with good value for health care. All hospitals got A or B grades on how well they did in avoiding the overuse of testing, scanning and imaging services as well as being efficient with the cost of services.

But on inclusivity, how well the patients treated by hospitals lined up with their actual representation in the community based on income, race and education level, there was a bit more variation. St. Luke’s in Fountain Hill was the only local hospital that received an A grade; most others, including all ranked LVHN hospitals, got B grades. St. Luke’s-Anderson, Upper Bucks and Miners all received C grades.