A virtual tour of the new St. Luke’s University Health Network’s Carbon Campus was held in conjunction with the Carbon Chamber and Economic Development on Tuesday.

A brief video accompanied by a slideshow on a Zoom presentation gave the community a glimpse of the Franklin Township facility that is expected to debut in November.

John Nespoli, President of St. Luke’s University, Carbon County campuses, said there’s a fundamental belief that comprehensive health care should be local.

“A local community should be able to take care of the sickest patients - the highest acuity patients. … We’ve been working hard to deliver that to the region,” Nespoli said.

“We don’t want people to travel for care - that’s just not a convenience. There’s a lot of research that shows, if someone has to travel for care, quite often, they don’t get the care they need and problems occur - delays in diagnosis, so health care issues happen, that don’t have to happen. It’s a quality issue.”

Joe Pinto, Chief Operating Officer of the Carbon campuses, said the new hospital is 160,000 square feet on top of 110 acres.

Pinto highlighted tons of accommodations and services that the new facility will offer.

The Carbon campus will have capacity for 80 acute care rooms, three operating rooms, two procedure rooms, 12 ICU beds with 24-hour critical care, capacity for 30 emergency beds and a full interventional radiology suite.

More services include advanced cardiac services, chest pain accreditation, stroke center accreditation, a level IV trauma program and a fitness center.

“This is one of the most innovative medical centers that we’re about to open Nov. 20 - in the country. That’s from a high-tech perspective, it’s from a physician and nursing perspective and it’s also from a high-touch perspective,” Nespoli added.

“There’s a lot more going on than just the fabulous medical center and it starts with a commitment of quality. And every hospital that joins that St. Luke’s Network gets the benefit of massive recruitment power of talent, but also tremendous educational systems and development of people and the best practices in clinical protocols.”

Nespoli added that the Carbon campus will also serve as a teaching hospital.

“There will be dozens of medical students training at this hospital. This is a major teaching hospital, and that further enhances quality, research shows that, but more importantly, this is going to be a resource to this county for generations to come for health care and medical talent.”

Nespoli said there are roughly 180,000 people who live within a 20- to 25-minute drive of the new hospital.

Additionally, he added that the total economic impact, including the suppliers and businesses supporting the hospital, is estimated at $250 million per year.

“The St. Luke’s philosophy is that it shouldn’t be specialists coming up from the city a couple times a month as a satellite. We have recruited dozens of new specialists based in this county - working here, living here, playing here, committed to the county. The quality of the people is spectacular.”