Carbon County residents can receive care closer to home now that Lehigh Valley Health Network’s newest outpatient center is up and running in Lehighton.

LVHN Imaging and Breast Health Services opened this week at 1205 Blakeslee Blvd. Drive East, the site of the former Payless ShoeSource shoe store in the Carbon Plaza Mall.

The health network offers services that include radiology, ultrasound, 3D screening mammography and lab services through Health Network Labs.

Terry Purcell, LVHN’s vice president for market development, said the Health Network Lab marks the second one located in Lehighton.

“Over 4,000 women leave Carbon County and get their mammograms at one of our Lehigh Valley locations,” Purcell said. “That’s why we decided to open an office locally.”

Purcell said that for radiology, patients need their scripts for any of those services, but that for the lab, they don’t need an appointment, as it’s walk-in service.

“We decided to open to make it more convenient for Carbon County,” he said. “A lot of community leaders, residents and physicians have asked us to expand our outpatient services that we offer.”

Purcell said the 3,600-square-foot building has six employees.

“They’re all local people that worked for the network elsewhere and decided they wanted to work closer to home,” he said.

In a statement released in February, Brian Nester, LVHN’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said community members and LVHN patients requested that the health network expand outpatient services in Carbon County prior to the opening of a new hospital, which was announced last summer. He said patients will no longer have to travel for general X-ray and ultrasound services, women will be able to receive mammograms closer to home, and those who use the current HNL lab location in Lehighton, which is extremely popular, will benefit from having a second location to make getting their lab work done more convenient.

The addition of an outpatient center in Lehighton is LVHN’s latest expansion of services in Carbon County. LVHN announced in August it would build a new hospital along Blakeslee Boulevard (Route 443) in Mahoning Township, about a mile from the planned outpatient center. Township supervisors approved the project in November. The new hospital will be called Lehigh Valley Hospital-Carbon and will be built on an open property purchased by the health network cattycorner to the Walmart Superstore on Blakeslee Boulevard. The health network expects to break ground on the project in the spring and opening is anticipated in the fall of 2021.

Purcell will serve as president of the new hospital.

LVHN also opened two ExpressCARE locations in Lehighton and Palmerton in 2019.

ExpressCARE Lehighton is located at 363 N. First St., while ExpressCARE at Palmerton began seeing patients in October at 528 Delaware Ave. With the two Carbon County facilities, LVHN now provides services at 20 ExpressCARE locations in the region.

Other LVHN services and specialists already available in the area include family practice, hematology oncology, infusion, cardiology, neurology, pulmonary and critical care medicine, vascular surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, rehab and laboratory services through HNL.

For more information about any of these services contact LVHN.org/Carbon or call 888-402-LVHN.