Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Health Network entered into a joint venture with Allentown-based Eastern Pennsylvania Gastroenterology and Liver Specialists to build two new outpatient endoscopy centers.
What you should know:
1. EPGI physicians will join the health system Oct. 1, and begin seeing patients at Allentown-based Eastern Pennsylvania Endoscopy Center the same day. EPEC was formed in 2002. EPGI physicians treated 7,000 cases at the center in 2018.
2. Lehigh Valley Health will build an endoscopy center on the second floor of the Health Center at Easton (Pa.), where EPGI will begin providing services in the summer of 2020.
3. LVHN Department of Medicine Chair Timothy Friel, MD, said the partnership "strengthens our relationship with this tremendous gastroenterology team which has provided exceptional specialty inpatient and outpatient care to LVHN patients for many years."
4. Dr. Friel added that the two joint ventures will allow the hospital to move lower acuity procedures into the outpatient setting, freeing up space at the hospital for more complex cases.
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