United States
Leif Greiss is the health care reporter for The Morning Call. He's previously written for, Bristol Herald Courier, the Reading Eagle, WhoWhatWhy.org, TribLIVE.com, The Daily Collegian and other media. His focuses are on investigative and watchdog journalism, data analysis and data visualization. He graduated from Penn State in '17 with a major in digital and print journalism and minor in information science and technology.
Last year, activists pushed for a referendum to ban solitary confinement in Lehigh County jail. The effort failed, but it started a discussion about the controversial issue.
Lehigh Valley Health Network has joined a select group of networks and hospitals participating in the expanded clinical trial of this drug that has so far proven 100% effective in certain cases of colorectal cancer.
Radon is an odorless, colorless gas commonly found in nature. Prolonged exposure at high levels increases risk of lung cancer. There are easy ways to test for radon, and to fix it if it's found in your home.
Two newborn babies died at LVH-Hazleton after on-call pediatricians were late, and the hospital put patients in "immediate jeopardy," a Pennsylvania Department of Health inspection foun...
New cardiovascular treatments at St. Luke's and LVHN hospitals have less risk and are allowing patients to recover faster, doctors say.
Though lung cancer is still the deadliest cancer, causing 1 in 5 cancer deaths, most eligible for annual lung cancer screening aren't being scanned.
On April 27, 2021, 56-year-old Jeffrey Sullivan walked into the then critically understaffed hospital after he'd felt horribly sick for four days straight. He died in hospice care 11 days later.
Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono failed to provide proper care to a patient by failing to conduct a suicide assessment of a man who threatened suicide. The man was released from the hospital, only to ...
A Pennsylvania Department of Health report says that staff in Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono's cardiovascular telemetry unit took 14 minutes to respond to an alarm that sounded because one patient's blood oxygen level fell to a critically low level. That patient died a few days later.
On the evening of Oct. 26, a patient who came to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono's emergency department showing early warning signs of cardiac arrest was sent back to the waiting room.Two hours later, the patient died.Disorganization, understaffing, a disregard for hospital policy, lack of supervision and failures by senior hospital management were all at play in [...]
On the afternoon of Feb. 15, a man who had just been discharged from Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono after a stay for being suicidal, walked out of the hospital to a nearby overpass bridge above Interstate 80 East and jumped off it.The patient, who survived the jump, had been checked into LVH-Pocono's emergency department about one [...]
An inspection by the Pennsylvania Department of Health found that Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono's emergency department was chronically understaffed, leading to situations that were unsafe for patients who received inadequate care in many instances.The inspection, which occurred from Dec. 2 to Dec. 4, found LVH-Pocono violated both federal and state regulations related to staffing, organization, delivery [...]
St. Luke's President and CEO Rick Anderson has helped shape the business of health care in the Lehigh Valley for nearly 39 years. With LVHN and Jefferson trying to merge, here's what he...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently rang the alarm about the emerging concern posed by alpha-gal syndrome.
In 2022 alone, there were 101 children in Allentown detected with elevated blood lead levels. The city of Allentown is working to address lead paint in homes.
It may take more than one dose of naloxone to completely reverse an overdose if the person took one of several novel and potent synthetic opioids that while rare are becoming more common in the United States, a new study coauthored by a Lehigh Valley Health Network physician found.
As a respiratory therapist with Lehigh Valley Health Network, Kenneth Miller has witnessed from the frontlines the physiological and psychological damage caused by COVID-19."I've seen a lot of people, unfortunately, pass away. And I've seen a lot of people that have survived struggle to breathe for quite a while until they finally get back to [...]
Dr. Walter Jean, chief of neurological surgery at Lehigh Valley Health Network, and two colleagues visited Ghana in January to train Ghanaian neurosurgeons.
When Timothy Merrick found out Friday, Nov. 20, he may have been exposed to the coronavirus by his daughter, he got tested."It took till Sunday to get my results and at first I'm like, 'No I don't have it. No I don't have it.' Saturday I started to get some symptoms and I have to [...]
Grace and Michael Smith's youngest son turned 1 last month, but there were few happy memories from the days after his birth, the couple said.What should have been a time for the parents to bond with their newborn boy, Julian, became a waking nightmare that still intrudes on the happiness of their family.Hours after Julian [...]
Two months, that's how long the inmate spent in Lehigh County Jail before he was tested for COVID-19.He was admitted to the jail in mid-October on a parole violation after he stopped reporting for mandatory drug testing in the pandemic and the system caught up with him when he overdosed.
Neither speaks the other's language fluently, but a Bethlehem woman and a man from the Dominican Republic have connected through faith and by supporting each other through their illnesses.
BRISTOL, Tenn. - When he's gone on medical relief trips to South America, Dr. Grat Correll said he's seen kids die almost every day, many of them from vaccine-preventable diseases like diphtheria or polio. Correll, a physician of 25 years, said parents often asked him to vaccinate their children, but he couldn't - they didn't have the means to safely store vaccines or administer them.
Step into the long, linear jail cell so overcrowded there is scant room to sit or sleep, save for a few unoccupied patches of concrete floor. Inmates wearing faded jumpsuits with black-and-white stripes and bright orange Crocs stare back blankly as the large door of gray metal bars slams shut.
Democrats performed well in state and local elections in 2017 and held a large lead in generic polls heading into this year. But voters expecting a Democratic wave that wins them the House in 2018 may be in for a surprise. Winning the majority of votes in a state, or in the country as a whole, doesn't guarantee victory.
Created by Leif Greiss and Frank Esposito courtesy of Carto Pennsylvania is split into 67 counties, of which 24 have more registered Democrat voters than registered Republican voters. Many of these Democrat-leaning counties contain cities and large metropolitan areas. For example Allegheny county, where Pittsburgh is located, or Philadelphia County, are both overwhelming Democrat.
2015 saw the most sexual assaults reported at Penn State since 2012, following the breaking of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. There were 62 forcible sex offenses reported to the university in 2015, just one less than the number of reported sexual offenses in 2012.
After years of cutbacks, a federal program that communities rely on to complete projects they otherwise could not afford might disappear entirely. President Trump's 2018 budget proposal calls for eliminating the $3.3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, commonly known by its acronym, CDBG.
On the night of Oct. 6, 2016, Old Main's pillars were lit up top to bottom by a multi-colored light display, simply reading: All In. Born out of conversations students had with President Eric Barron and Vice Provost of Educational Equity Marcus Whitehurst, the initiative 'All In' seeks to expand and celebrate diversity, inclusivity and equity on Penn State campuses and in the community as a whole.
With THON merely hours away, let's take a look at the massive event by the numbers. One thing is certain: the statistics are remarkable. Two-thirds of all money raised since THON's inception in 1977 has been raised in the past 10 years.
As of Sept. 10, just two weeks into the fall 2016 semester, there were five Timely Warnings concerning sexual assault. Sexual assaults are not the only crimes that Timely Warnings focus on, however, they make up the majority of those sent to the Penn State University Park community.
Drunken undergraduate shenanigans are what caused a University of Virginia student to be sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea. Otto Warmbier, a junior at Virginia and a member of the Theta Chi fraternity, was sentenced on March 16 for attempting to steal a propaganda poster during a trip he took to North Korea, according to the Associated Press.
