Community Partner: St. Luke’s University Health Network

Moravian University and St. Luke’s University Health Network have enjoyed a powerful and productive partnership for more than two decades. In 1998, the Helen S. Breidegam School of Nursing and Public Health was founded as a jointly owned and governed entity between the two institutions and at the time was named the St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing at Moravian College.

Fifteen years later, in July of 2013, St. Luke’s and Moravian agreed to transition the operation of the nursing program to one of sole ownership and governance by Moravian, while St. Luke’s continued to provided support. Two years later, the two institutions, led by John Hauth, senior director, sports medicine relations for St. Luke’s, and James Scifers, chair of rehabilitation sciences at Moravian, dove into collaboration on a sports medicine and rehabilitation center that would house a St. Luke’s sports medicine clinic side by side with Moravian’s new department of rehabilitation sciences.

It was a match that has led to the development of one of the country’s leading programs in rehabilitation sciences uniquely positioned to emphasize interprofessional education in all its programs: master’s and doctorate degrees in athletic training, a master’s in occupational therapy, and a master’s in speech-language pathology. And Moravian is a candidate for Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) accreditation for a doctoral program in physical therapy.

The adjacency of the department of rehabilitation sciences and the St. Luke’s clinic creates a synergy that bursts with possibilities. St. Luke’s provides clinical educational opportunities to graduate students in the rehab sciences as well as undergraduates in the health sciences. The clinic offers its clinicians to serve as instructors, adjunct faculty, guest speakers, and mentors. In return, Moravian’s department of rehab sciences is an educational resource for St. Luke’s clinicians, and the two institutions regularly collaborate on research. Furthermore, St. Luke’s University Health Network employs many of the Moravian University students graduating from programs in the rehabilitation sciences—a win-win for our students and St. Luke’s.

As the partnership in rehabilitation sciences has developed and continues to progress, the relationship between St. Luke’s University Health Network and Moravian’s nursing programs remains a constant. Most students enrolled in Moravian’s traditional nursing program, post-baccalaureate accelerated nursing program, master’s program, and nurse practitioner program complete their clinical requirements at St. Luke’s. The School of Nursing’s clinical coordinator and the Clinical Student Services Liaison at St. Luke’s work closely together to ensure excellent clinical placements and preceptor experiences. Moravian owes much of its success to St. Luke’s for the outstanding clinical experiences and preceptors with whom our students engage. Many Moravian graduates are offered positions at St. Luke’s as a direct result of their clinical experiences. And many St. Luke’s employees are students or clinical adjunct faculty in our nursing programs. Another win-win for our institutions.

St. Luke’s has also supported Moravian philanthropically, making a six-figure pledge for the high-fidelity simulation lab in the Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz Center for Health Sciences and giving to athletics, the Night of Stars, and the Golf Classic.

As a result of Moravian’s close collaboration with St. Luke’s University Health Network throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Richard Anderson, St. Luke’s President and CEO, and Dr. Jeff Jahre, Senior Vice President of Medical and Academic Affairs, were featured guests at the virtual Night of Stars in 2021.

Together, St. Luke’s University Health Network and Moravian University have accomplished the amazing. We’re sure this long-standing partnership will endure for decades to come, and we look forward to the next brilliant outcome of our collaboration.