The Reading Hospital Announces New Brand Identity – Reading Health System

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Since 1868, The Reading Hospital has been a forward-looking organization committed to growing an advanced healthcare system that directly benefits the people, health, and wellness of the communities we serve. Today, we announce a new identity that better reflects who we are as we continue to shape and innovate healthcare. From our modest beginnings 144 years ago, we have grown to become a community leader with 7,680 employees, 1,070 physicians and advanced practitioners, and 63 locations across the region - we are proud to announce The Reading Hospital is now Reading Health System.

Our commitment to serving the community includes remaining in touch with our roots and history. In our new name "Reading," conveys our attachment to the community. We are dedicated to proactively advance the "Health" of the communities we serve. "System" suggests the advantages of building on our strengths across the organization, linking our facilities, services, and physicians to deliver the most integrated family of care that forms the foundation of our advanced healthcare system.

Reading Health System consists of:

• Reading Hospital - our 673-bed acute care hospital in West Reading. This name replaces The Reading Hospital and Medical Center.
• Reading Health Rehabilitation Hospital - our Spring Township facility that has 62 patient rooms or post-acute rehabilitation, including an 11-bed secured Brain Injury Unit, and 50 private rooms or transitional or skilled care. This is the new name for The Reading Hospital for Post-Acute Rehabilitation.
• Reading Health Physician Network- a network of primary care and specialty physicians to provide ambulatory and hospital-based care to our community, community. This is the new name for The Reading Hospital Medical Group and Reading Professional Services.
• The Highlands at Wyomissing - our 113-acre continuing care retirement community offering independent living in villas and apartments, as well as an 80-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitation center. This name does not change.
• Berkshire Health Partners - a preferred provider organization jointly owned with physicians on Reading Hospital's medical staff that connects almost 100,000 employees of area businesses with a network of 4,300 provides in the delivery of high quality, cost-effective care. Berkshire Health Partners name does not change.

"Today is the dawning of a new day for all of us, internally and externally, for our patients and our providers, for Berks County and beyond," said Clint Matthews, Reading Health System President and CEO. "Our new name, Reading Health System, conveys the full scope of our organization, including our wide range of services, advanced treatments, and physical locations. We are committed to fulfilling our promise to advance the health and wellness of the communities we serve."

Tagline and Logo
In addition to the name change, Reading Health System is introducing a tagline - Advancing Health. Transforming Lives. This tagline conveys the essence of Reading Health System and our desire to advance the health of our communities and transform lives by being a consistent source of knowledge and support in every way we can.

We also learned from our extensive research that our "tower" logo signals trust and longevity to our communities, but we also knew that it could better represent who we are now and where we're going. As a result, we updated and simplified our logo to more strongly project into the future. The result is a logo that builds on our strong heritage while pointing the way forward.

Other Changes

In addition to a new logo, tagline, and identity, correspondence with the community will also be affected by changes in our website, email, and telephone communications.

• Our website will now be found at http://www.readinghealth.org
• Email contacts become firstname.lastname@readinghealth.org
• System telephone numbers will become more uniform. All Reading Hospital phone numbers will adopt the 484-628-XXXX protocol to existing extensions.

For questions regarding contact information, call the Reading Hospital main number (484-628-8000), HelpLine (484-628-HELP), or visit http://www.readinghealth.org