{"id":149735,"date":"2026-06-03T20:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T00:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149735"},"modified":"2026-06-03T20:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T00:47:15","slug":"expanding-the-meaning-of-excellence-through-cancer-screening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149735","title":{"rendered":"Expanding the Meaning of \u2018Excellence\u2019 through Cancer Screening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo caption (from left): Dr. Eleanor Harris, MD, Vice Chair of Oncology and Chief of Radiation Oncology, and a patient during a cancer screening.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Cancer screenings are critical for preventing and treating disease, yet people too often lack access to these services. Screening also represents an essential gateway to better community health.<\/p>\n

To meet this mission, Jesse Keiper, a member of St. Luke\u2019s Cancer team, organized a free cancer screening and prevention fair that highlighted St. Luke\u2019s comprehensive commitment to care\u2014from detection to treatment to continuing wellness.<\/p>\n

Jesse, an oncology prevention and advocacy specialist who has been with St. Luke\u2019s for more than a decade, coordinated the inaugural screening fair in February at the St. Luke\u2019s Upper Bucks Campus. Despite the bitter cold, more than 40 screenings for skin and head and neck cancers were conducted. Attendees also learned about screening and prevention for other types of cancer and toured the Upper Bucks Center for Hope & Healing\u2014a one-of-a-kind patient-centered space for support throughout the cancer journey\u2014where oncology dieticians made smoothies and answered questions about nutrition.<\/p>\n

Jesse organized the screening fair as part of her capstone project for a Master\u2019s of Social Work from Moravian University. She designed the event to convene multidisciplinary cancer treatment teams around the shared goals of exceptional care and positive patient experiences, creating an opportunity to showcase St. Luke\u2019s growing Centers of Excellence for cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

The Centers of Excellence initiative is intended to encourage and foster communication and coordination among Cancer team members as they work to provide personal and seamless patient care. Currently there are four Centers of Excellence; the number will soon expand to 11 to include all disease\u2011specific cancer programs at St. Luke\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just about being \u2018excellent\u2019 in the clinical setting, but it’s how we deliver care and how we work together as a team,\u201d said Kerianne Pollinger, Director of Oncology Excellence and Accreditation at. St. Luke\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Pollinger has been Jesse\u2019s field supervisor for two years and encouraged her to coordinate St. Luke\u2019s screening fair plans. Jesse\u2019s work also underscores St. Luke\u2019s mission to identify and cultivate talented employees who live in the communities they serve.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesse is homegrown St. Luke\u2019s talent and reflects what makes our St. Luke\u2019s family so special,\u201d Pollinger said. \u201cWe grow our own leaders, and we approach that responsibility with the same intention and care that we bring to our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesse is organizing the next St. Luke\u2019s cancer screening and prevention fair for August 1st<\/sup>\u00a0from 9 a.m.-noon at St. Luke\u2019s Sacred Heart Campus in Allentown. The event is free, and anyone can walk in, or accompany family members, to get screened and to learn more about how prevention and early detection can save lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about that one community member who builds trust and rapport with us. Therefore, they\u2019re going to trust the system and come to these appointments,\u201d Jesse said. \u201cIt\u2019s about relationship-building in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872, St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than $4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is the Lehigh Valley\u2019s biggest employer.<\/p>\n

The Network\u2019s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation\u2019s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows. Additionally, the St. Luke\u2019s College of Health Sciences opened in 2026.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ranked St. Luke\u2019s #1 \u2013 ahead of Houston Methodist and Mayo Clinic, two of the nation\u2019s most prestigious institutions \u2013 as the nation\u2019s top health system for quality, safety and patient experience. This objective recognition, based on public data reported to the government, reaffirms St. Luke\u2019s preeminent position as THE BEST OF THE BEST among the most respected health care systems in the United States.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World\u2019s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. In 2026, the Network earned straight A\u2019s from Leapfrog across all of its acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 12 years in a row, including in 2026 when the Network was identified as THE #1 MEDIUM-SIZE HEALTH SYSTEM IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nSam Kennedy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo caption (from left): Dr. Eleanor Harris, MD, Vice Chair of Oncology and Chief of Radiation Oncology, and a patient during a cancer screening. Cancer screenings are critical for preventing and treating disease, yet people too often lack access to these services. Screening also represents an essential gateway to better community health. To meet this … Continue reading Expanding the Meaning of \u2018Excellence\u2019 through Cancer Screening<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dr-harris.jpg?fit=672%2C372&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149737,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149735\/revisions\/149737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/149736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}