Lehigh Valley Health Network

What it reported doing in 2024

Lvh-hazleton emergency department (ed), along with all our health network hospitals, continues to be challenged with high patient volumes. The emergency department patient flow team continues to focus on improvement in efficiencies of operations of the ed, reduce patient wait times, patient experience and improve patient throughput. This multi-disciplinary team consisted of ed staff, lab, radiology, pharmacy, housekeeping, food service, ems, registration, and live spanish interpreters. Lvh-h ed continues to maintain strong performance of left without being seen (lwbs) at .89% and a 6-percentile point increase in patient experience in fy25 vs fy24. On average, the ed los for admitted patients decreased by 95 minutes and ed to admission conversion percentage improved by 1.33%. We have also decreased our door to doc times by nearly half. We have developed a core alert nurse role and pod leader role to help support our teams with patient care and documentation. We have also added on a dedicated ed educator to help improve our education in the department and focus on quality improvement. We also have cameras in each room in the main department to be able to facilitate virtual nurse triage and virtual nurse admission to help with throughput in the department.as a primary stroke center and chest pain center of excellence, we continue to put significant effort into improving the care of these patients where time is critical. In fy25, for patients experiencing stroke-like symptoms, we achieved a door to ct scan time average of 14 minutes, achieving our goal of <15 minutes and a 31% reduction from fy24 to fy25 in door to thrombolytics with the introduction of tenecteplase. We continued to achieve the door in - door out goal of <120 minutes at 114 minutes. In fy25, for patients presenting with chest pain, we achieved the door to ekg goal of <10 minutes with an average of 3 minutes and door to balloon goal of <120 minutes with an average of 112 minutes. Hospice services in partnership with lehigh valley hospice, inpatient and home care hospice services are provided to our local community. This is the only inpatient hospice program serving the greater hazleton area. The program model is designed to deliver patient-centered care rather than disease-centered care and to provide comfort and care to terminally ill patients and their families. In fy25, hospice services were provided to 75 lvh-h patients for a total of 359 days of care which was an approximate 50% increase from prior year.telehealth servicesas technology has advanced, the ways health care can be provided have changed and advanced too. At lvh-h, patients are benefiting from secure telehealth technology that allows them to access and receive quality, specialized care conveniently. In fy 2025, lvh-h added inpatient telehealth endocrinology, nephrology, medical nutrition therapy and virtual nursing to its growing list of telehealth services that include heme/oncology, infectious disease, neurology, advanced intensive care unit (aicu), burn, neurosurgery, toxicology, psychiatric evaluations, physiatry, surgery, maternal fetal medicine, and palliative care. Trauma and violence preventionthere was an increased focus in fy25 on trauma and violence prevention and response. Our goal as a healthcare organization is not only to care for patients with traumatic injuries such as penetrating wounds and falls, but to prevent these from happening. In fy25 the trauma and violence prevention team participated in over 30 community events in hazleton and surrounding areas to ages that ranged from school-based to senior older adults. Topics discussed included gun violence prevention, reduction of at-risk teen behaviors, fall prevention, injury prevention, stop the bleed and hands-only cpr, substance use/misuse, distracted and impaired driving, atv safety, and water safety.athletic training and school-based behavioral health programan athletic training (at) contract between lvh-h and the hazleton area

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 90.1%; rating input score 90
• Program expense ratio: 99.6%; rating input score 100
• Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 5 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 83
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Pass
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Pass
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 75%; rating input score 75; 24th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 17.5%; rating input score 85; 85th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.53; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.36; rating input score 49; 49th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 1%; rating input score 74; 74th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 6.3% per year; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 5.2% per year; rating input score 100; 45th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 9.7% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings