Penn Foundation and St. Luke’s University Health Network announce that Penn Foundation will join St. Luke’s University Health Network.

Headquartered in Sellersville, Penn Foundation is a nonprofit, community-based behavioral health provider with 27 behavioral health and substance use treatment programs that serve more than 20,000 people annually.

It operates one of Pennsylvania’s first Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence and is an Aetna Institute of Quality and an Independence Blue Cross Center of Distinction.

Penn Foundation’s decision to join St. Luke’s comes at a time when the demand for behavioral health services is rapidly rising.

The alarming rates of depression, anxiety and suicide are expected to increase as a result of the immediate and long-term effects of the global pandemic. Additionally, as a result of increased alcohol consumption and the ongoing challenges connected to the opioid crisis, substance use disorder treatment is also expected to spike.

St. Luke’s has made behavioral health a top priority. In 2018, St. Luke’s tripled its number of behavioral health inpatient beds to 168, making it the largest provider of services of this type in the Lehigh Valley. St. Luke’s Sacred Heart in Allentown plans to open the region’s first Level IV medical detoxification unit early next year, providing 24-hour medical supervision to people withdrawing from alcohol or other drugs.