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Politics & Government

Forbes Regional Hospital Gets $20M for Projects

Renovations, additional signs and two specialized centers are in the works.

West Penn Allegheny Health System and Highmark Inc. will pour $20 million into expanding services and renovating in Monroeville this year, the companies said during a press conference Wednesday morning.

Among projects planned for the hospital are renovations to nursing floors, the addition of signs on the building and along roads, and the creation of one center devoted to breast care and another to complex traumas.

Dan Lebish, executive vice president with Highmark, said representatives of the two companies have been meeting weekly over the past three months. Highmark and WPAHS became and are planning a merger.

“We’ve been going from top to bottom through the facility trying to identify ways that Highmark can help improve the capabilities and enhance the clinical services within Forbes,” Lebish said.

The trauma center, which would handle “Level II” cases currently deferred to hospitals in Pittsburgh, is expected to open by the end of the year—but it wouldn’t be until 2013 or 2014 that it receives certification, said Chief Medical Officer Mark Rubino. Being able to treat such cases will benefit trauma patients, Rubino said, since having to transport them delays treatment in life-and-death situations.

The hospital will roll out projects such as renovations to nursing floors and additional signage immediately. Patients often have trouble locating the building and its entrances, Lebish said, and the hospital hopes additional signs will help make it easier for them.

One nursing floor—the carpet of which Lebish said had been held together by duct tape—has already been renovated, with work on two others to begin soon. Additional cosmetic upgrades are planned, too.

“We want the patients to also feel like they are in a facility that is new and modern,” Lebish said.

Highmark CEO Ken Melani said his company also is looking to open a “medical mall” in either Monroeville or Murrysville. The mall would provide outpatient services and sell medical products.

A number of public officials, including day-old , attended the conference. Fitzgerald—whom Melani introduced as “Rich Fitzpatrick,” correcting himself over audience laughter—said the capital improvements are reassuring for residents.

“I think you see a coming together of our community—political leaders of all levels,” Fitzgerald said, noting the presence of Monroeville officials as well as U.S. senators Pat Toomey and Bob Casey. “This is a vitally, vitally important issue to everybody.”

Having competition in the health care market is important, Fitzgerald said.

“It’s great to make sure that we have viability in our health care facilities—that we have competition, that we do not have just one source in Allegheny County and in Western Pennsylvania,” he said.

Earlier in the conference, Rubino alluded to “competition down the street”—a UPMC hospital being built on Route 22. After the $20 million in improvements at Forbes Regional, he said, the UPMC hospital won’t compare.

West Penn and UPMC are still in mediation for an anti-trust lawsuit West Penn filed in 2009, saying UPMC and Highmark conspired to eliminate other insurers and health care providers in the region. West Penn later dropped Highmark from the suit. The company currently insures patients at both hospitals.

Increasing competition, Melani said, is the larger goal of the hospital upgrades.

“It’s really all about choice,” Melani said. “When you have a healthy level of competition in health care, it improves to the quality of health care. And it improves the affordability of health care.”

Regarding the West Penn-UPMC lawsuit and the potential merger of Highmark and West Penn, Fitzgerald said county officials know they have limited authority over the issue.

“We try to be supportive of helping the institutions grow—and that would be all institutions,” he said. “We’re not picking winners and losers. That’s not our role.”

Fitzgerald’s predecessor Dan Onorato accepted a senior executive position with Highmark last month. He, too, attended the conference.

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