Student athletes gain access to elite care in new partnership with Lutheran Health Network

FORT WAYNE, Ind.—Purdue University Fort Wayne and its Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced today that the university has formed a partnership with Lutheran Health Network to provide comprehensive health care for all student-athletes.
This partnership will expand services and resources to help provide comprehensive health care in the fields of sports medicine, sports performance, and beyond.

“Health care for our student-athletes is a top priority,” says Kelley Hartley Hutton, athletics director. “We are excited and confident that this partnership will help our student-athletes achieve peak performance through top-notch care in areas like injury prevention, diagnostics, and specialized rehabilitation.”

The student-athletes will have access to the physicians at Fort Wayne Orthopedics, the trained staff at Optimum Performance Sports, clinical experts at Lutheran Health Network, and programming provided by all three.

“We are proud to bring our 30-year history of providing sports medicine services in the community to a partnership with Purdue Fort Wayne,” says Jerald Cooper, M.D., Fort Wayne Orthopedics. “We look forward to collaborating with the skilled athletic trainers and therapists at OPS to keep Purdue Fort Wayne’s athletes competing safely in their sport.”

The partnership not only gives student-athletes unprecedented access to this specialized care, it also creates a wonderful new community partnership that is likely to grow in the future.

“We are very honored to have an athletic department that has achieved so much representing the university and our entire region entrust us with this responsibility,” says Mike Poore, regional president and CEO of Lutheran Health Network. “Purdue Fort Wayne is ushering in a new chapter for Fort Wayne sports and we look forward to joining this team.”

Lutheran Health Network will also provide support in other areas of Mastodon Athletics, including the inaugural Mastodon Open, which was held last month at Pine Valley Country Club. Optimum Performance Sports was the presenting sponsor and donated a golf package for the silent auction that included swing analysis and private lessons.

The Mastodons compete in 14 sports. Purdue University Fort Wayne is an NCAA Division I institution competing in the Summit League and Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

For more information, contact Nicole Hahn at 260-760-4709 or [email protected], or Derrick Sloboda at 260-481-0729 or [email protected]

 ###