A SOLID FOUNDATION
For a Bright Future
 UPMC
Passavant expansion to provide northern residents with more advanced
services, state-of-the-art technology
When UPMC Passavant, McCandless campus, broke ground this September on
a seven-story addition, the hospital did more than begin construction
of a new state-of-the-art facility to serve an increasing number of
patients. With the first shovelful of earth, the hospital reaffirmed
its commitment to provide residents of the North Hills and surrounding
communities with cutting-edge technology and advanced specialty care
close to home.
“As a leading tertiary care facility north of the city, UPMC
Passavant’s vision is to build the ‘hospital of the future’ for
residents living north of Pittsburgh and beyond,” said Teresa G.
Petrick, president, UPMC Passavant. “Our goal is to continue to
provide patients and their families with world-class care within their
own community.”
With Governor Ed Rendell and Allegheny County Chief Exec-utive Dan
Onorato in attendance, the ground-breaking marked the start of the
$100 million expansion of the McCandless campus. The addition will
increase capacity for advanced tertiary cancer care; advanced
cardiovascular and neurosurgical treatments; and medical, surgical,
and emergency care.
The expansion will increase the hospital’s capacity to serve a growing
patient population. In the past five years, UPMC Passavant medical and
surgical admis-sions have grown by 30 percent — roughly 3,600
additional admissions over the five-year period. Emergency Department
visits have increased by 27 percent, surgeries by 34 percent, and
outpatient visits by 17.5 percent.
“By expanding the services offered at UPMC Passavant, the hospital
will be better able to meet the needs of residents living north of the
city as those communities continue to grow,” said Elizabeth Concordia,
UPMC senior vice president, Academic and Community Hospitals. “The
expansion of UPMC Passavant is essential to UPMC’s mission to make our
world-class care accessible to outlying communities.”
How the hospital will grow UPMC Passavant’s expansion represents an
investment in more than bricks and mortar. At completion — in
approximately two and a half years — the new Patient Tower will
provide 188,000 square feet of floor space. The hospital will also
increase its capabilities by adding new technology, such as CT
simulators in the UPMC Cancer Center at UPMC Passavant, and by
creating a fast-track area in the Emergency Department with dedicated
imaging services for added patient convenience. The expansion also
will create approximately 300 new health care jobs, bringing the total
hospital staff to 2,500.
Efforts are well under way to expand the scope of cardiovascular
services that UPMC Passavant offers to northern residents. Patients
who once had to travel into Pittsburgh to receive treatment for
high-end cardiac surgical procedures including mitral valve repair,
coronary artery revascularization, aortic valve replacement, and
left-ventricular reconstruction, now have access to surgeons who
specialize in these procedures right in their own neighborhood.
“This expansion will further develop our centers of excellence in
cancer and cardiac care, double the size of the Emergency Department
and equip it so that we can manage the most critical of cases, and add
customized ‘Star Wars’ operating rooms to meet our advanced surgical
needs,” said Ms. Petrick. “Our vision, born out of a strategic
planning process and response to public demand, is to be the hospital
of the future, offering the best that health care has to offer.”
Beyond enlarging the facility, enhancing technology, and increasing
staff, the expansion project allows the hospital to continue in its
mission to provide the highest level of patient- and family-focused
care.
“We are also focused on making a stay at our hospital the ultimate
patient experience, by offering private rooms, valet parking,
concierge services, and room service,” explained Ms. Petrick. Other
hospital amenities include a Healing Garden, meditation room and
chapel, attractive waiting areas, and an abundance of natural light.
“It’s all part of our effort to create a truly patient- and
family-centered environment,” added Ms. Petrick. “We want to help ease
patients’ minds and make them feel welcomed and cared for, in order to
make a positive impact in the healing process.”
Patient Tower
When completed, the new Patient Tower will provide increased capacity
for the Baierl UPMC Cancer Center, the Emergency Department, and
Surgical Services. It will also allow additional beds in the intensive
care, progressive care, and medical-surgical units. The layout of all
inpatient rooms will be identical throughout the Tower, so physicians
and nurses won’t have to reorient themselves when they enter each new
room. Designed to improve patient safety, these rooms also will aid in
noise reduction and provide more family space. Families also can take
advantage of the comfortable and more spacious waiting areas, which
will include blankets, pillows, food and beverage carts, and wireless
Internet access.
The Tower will connect to the existing hospital by glass-enclosed
walkways on each floor, and each patient room will feature an outside
window. A portion of the roof will be made into a green space for
patients and their families. In fact, the entire Tower will be
environmentally friendly, designed to protect the environment through
energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental
quality.
For ease of entry and exit, the hospital’s main entrance will be
reconfigured around the existing glass rotunda, and the Cancer Center
will have its own private entrance. Entrances at both ends will
naturally funnel visitors into the main registration area, where they
will be greeted by customer service representatives and directed to
their destinations. Based on the airport concept of separating
arrivals and departures, the design will allow passenger drop-off at
the front entrance and provide a dedicated patient discharge area in a
separate location.
“More than 80 individuals, half of whom are physicians, have worked
together to develop the new addition,” said Ms. Petrick. “By working
closely with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, we plan to
bring to our community many of the services and programs currently
offered at UPMC’s world-renowned Oakland campus.”
Emergency Department
As the North Hills continues to grow, so does the number of patients
treated in UPMC Passavant’s Emergency Depart-ment (ED). To provide
care in a more timely way, the hospital is doubling treatment capacity
by adding an additional 21,000 square feet of space to the ED. The
expansion will permit an increase in volume from 24,000 to 45,000
patient visits per year.
Designed according to advanced trauma specifications, the new
Emergency Department will feature three private triage bays, 26 acute
treatment rooms,
a 10-bed observation area, and a fast-track area with four rooms and
dedicated imaging services to maximize patient flow and minimize wait
times. Four critical care/trauma rooms will be situated nearest the
ambulance entrance.
Emergency physicians will continue to have immediate, 24-hour access
to stroke neurology experts at the UPMC Stroke Institute in Oakland
via state-of-the-art videoconferencing through the Stroke Telemedicine
Program, implemented at UPMC Passavant in 2006. Two catheterization
labs and a new electrophysiology lab will facilitate rapid treatment
for patients with acute cardiac problems.
The new Emergency Department will be completely self-contained with
its own ventilation system. Air will circulate through the ED,
separated from airflow in the rest of the hospital. This measure is
designed to protect patients, visitors, and staff in the rest of the
hospital from hazardous or infectious materials, such as those that
might contaminate the clothing of a person arriving in the Emergency
Department after an incident involving a hazardous substance.
Surgical Services
As the key to growth of UPMC Passavant’s tertiary services, Surgical
Services for vascular, spinal, and oncology cases will be expanded by
the addition of six state-of-the-art operating rooms, of which three
will be dedicated to image-guided procedures. One room will be
equipped for fixed fluoroscopy, one will be an angiography suite, and
the third will contain a new CT scanner.
An on-site blood bank, satellite pharmacy, and satellite pathology
labs will maximize efficiency in delivering patient care. The
postanesthesia recovery room will double in size, and the family
waiting area will be expanded to help keep patients’ loved ones as
comfortable as possible.
UPMC Cancer Center at UPMC Passavant
Already renowned for world-class cancer care, the UPMC Cancer Center
at UPMC Passavant will triple its current size to care for even more
patients. The expansion will increase the area by a total of 27,000
square feet, including new clinical space for advanced tertiary
services focusing on gastrointestinal, lung, breast, and liver
cancers. Space in treatment and infusion areas will increase by 100
percent. A new CT simulator will enable radiation oncologists to
localize and define patient tumors and to create 3-D tumor
reconstruction for improved treatment planning. Additionally,
radiosurgery will be added to the arsenal of cancer therapies.
Radiosurgery is a highly precise form of radiation therapy that
directs high-powered x-ray beams into a small area.
In addition to radiation oncology, medical oncology/drug therapy, and
surgical oncology services, the UPMC Cancer Center at UPMC Passavant
offers leading-edge treatment modalities, including 4-D
respiratory-gated radiation therapy, intensity-modulated radiation
therapy, and on-board imaging to improve tumor targeting and
treatment.
For the comfort of patients and their families, a dedicated outside
elevator will transport patients directly to the UPMC Cancer Center at
UPMC Passavant. Most chemotherapy perfusion rooms will have windows to
allow improved access, visibility, and natural lighting. Radiation
therapy and chemotherapy patients will have separate waiting areas.
As the region north of Pittsburgh continues to grow, so does the need
for its residents to have the most advanced medical treatment and
state-of-the-art facilities available. Through the expansion of the
McCandless campus, UPMC Passavant reasserts its commitment to the
community by providing its residents with patient- and family-focused
care at the most advanced level available.
Cranberry campus expansion under way
One of the most noticeable projects under way at UPMC Passavant,
Cranberry campus, is the $9 million expansion of the Emergency
Department (ED), which will grow from its current 12 rooms to 20
rooms. The Department also will house a special pediatric area in
partnership with emergency physicians from Children’s Hospital of
Pittsburgh
of UPMC.
“Currently there are nine beds and three fast-track beds in the
Emergency Department,” explains Ravi Vajjhala, MD, director of
Emergency Medicine at UPMC Passavant, Cranberry campus. “We will
expand this to 20 ED beds, five of which will be dedicated to
pediatric patients. With this expansion, we estimate that our volume
will grow from 20,000 patients annually to a projected volume of
40,000 patients by 2013, and that this growth will include a
substantial increase in the volume of pediatric patients.”
The Emergency Department expansion, slated for completion in May 2008,
will also provide more space for UPMC Passavant Cranberry’s Stroke
Telemed-icine System, which was implemented in March 2006.
UPMC Passavant–McCandless
9100 Babcock Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
412-367-6700
UPMC Passavant–Cranberry
One St. Francis Way
Cranberry Township, PA 16066
724-772-5300
For more information or a physician referral, call 1-800-533-UPMC
(8762).
upmc.com/passavant
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