University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Coordinates: 40°26′29″N 79°59′41″W / 40.44147°N 79.99482°W / 40.44147; -79.99482
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
Key people
  • Leslie C. Davis (President & CEO)[4]
  • Diane Holder (President & CEO UPMC Health Plan)
  • Charles Bogosta (President UPMC International)
ServicesTertiary level clinical care
Rehabilitation
Cancer centers
Community medical facilities
Retirement & long-term care
Health insurance
Health care management
Medical information technology
RevenueIncrease
Parent
UPMC Health System Edit this on Wikidata
DivisionsHealth Services
Insurance Services
UPMC International
UPMC Enterprises
Websiteupmc.com

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is an American

nonprofit health enterprise that has 100,000 employees, 40 hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds, 800 clinical locations including outpatient sites and doctors' offices, a 3.8 million-member health insurance division, as well as commercial and international ventures.[1][7] It is closely affiliated with its academic partner, the University of Pittsburgh.[8] It is considered a leading American health care provider, as its flagship facilities have ranked in U.S. News & World Report "Honor Roll" of the approximately 15 to 20 best hospitals in America for over 15 years.[9] As of 2016, its flagship hospital UPMC Presbyterian was ranked 12th nationally among the best hospitals (and first in Pennsylvania) by U.S. News & World Report and ranked in 15 of 16 specialty areas when including UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital. This does not include UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh which ranked in the top 10 of pediatric centers in a separate US News ranking.[9]

History

A mid-1920s plan for the new university medical center that would be located adjacent to the University of Pittsburgh's campus and medical school

Origins

Eye and Ear, Presbyterian, and Women's Hospitals circa 1943

UPMC has its roots in the 1893 establishment of

National Institute of Health funding, Detre assumed leadership overseeing all six of the university's schools of health sciences in the early 1980s. Implementing the same administrative model in those units, the collective schools of the health sciences and medical center were ultimately transformed into one of the largest centers for biomedical research in the nation.[21]

Merger and expansion

The seal of the University of Pittsburgh has previously been incorporated into the UPMC logo, and can be found on buildings and directional markers in and around various UPMC campuses, particularly those adjacent to the university

Beginning in 1986, members of the University Health Center including Presbyterian University Hospital, Falk Clinic, the

South Side, Aliquippa and Braddock hospitals. Meanwhile, UPMC began to merge with several of the already affiliated Tri-State hospitals including St. Margaret Memorial, Shadyside, and Passavant hospitals in 1997 and Magee-Womens Hospital in 1998.[23] The acquisition and mergers of hospitals morphed the Tri-State Health System into a consolidation of hospitals that currently makes up a significant portion of the UPMC health system. Due to its immense growth of the medical center, as well as the university's concerns regarding the financial risks associated with its faculty practice plans in the face of national changes in health care reimbursements, the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC restructured their relationship and legally separated in 1998 thus launching UPMC as an independent nonprofit corporation[24] with the university identified as a supported organization in its articles of incorporation.[25] The university consolidated its physicians' practice plans and transferred them, along with the university's hospital management functions, to UPMC, with UPMC providing ongoing financial support to the university and its academic missions in return. The result was a mutually exclusive partnership of close affiliation formalized by a series of interrelated agreements and mutual executive oversights, which includes the sharing of numerous board members.[24] This created a collaborative and coordinated decision-making model in which UPMC oversees all clinical activity, while the University of Pittsburgh remains the guardian of all academic priorities, particularly faculty-based research.[23]

Expansion of UPMC continued in 2001 as

Western Maryland Health System became the first Maryland hospital to join the UPMC system.[35] UPMC now operates over 35 academic, community, and specialty hospitals in Pennsylvania and New York, as well as over 600 outpatient sites and doctors' offices, more than 50 facilities for physical, occupational, speech and specialty therapies, and 14 retirement and long-term care site, along with its international and for-profit ventures.[7][36]

Notable physicians and researchers

Among the more renowned individuals who have worked with the University of Pittsburgh's medical center through its history are

organ transplantation there. Other notable doctors include pathologist Maud Menten who is famous for her contributions to enzyme kinetics, leading orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine expert Freddie Fu,[37] pioneering immunologist Niels Kaj Jerne, noted forensic pathologist and Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht, Vitamin C's discoverer Charles Glen King, pediatrician Jack Paradise, leading head and neck cancer surgeon and otolaryngologist Eugene Nicholas Myers, laparoscopic liver resection pioneer David Geller, breast cancer treatment pioneer Bernard Fisher, and virologists Patrick Moore and Yuan Chang, who co-discovered Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus
.

Famous patients

UPMC has provided care to many celebrities, including

Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimović traveled to a UPMC facility to have surgery to repair his torn anterior cruciate ligament.[46]

Operations

The administrative headquarters for UPMC are located at the top of the U.S. Steel Tower, Pittsburgh's tallest building

Administratively headquartered in 29 floors of the U.S. Steel Tower in Pittsburgh's Central Business District, UPMC operates as a complete and integrated health provider system that, although legally separate from the University of Pittsburgh, identifies it as a supported organization in its articles of incorporation[25] and remains closely affiliated with the university and its Schools of the Health Sciences including via the existence of mutual board memberships and subsidization of the university's academic programs.[8] Under a collaborative and coordinated decision-making model, UPMC oversees all clinical activity, including a consolidated physicians' practice plan consisting of university faculty, while the University of Pittsburgh remains the guardian of all academic priorities, particularly faculty-based research.[24] UPMC's 24-member Board of Directors equally splits representation between three groups: the University of Pittsburgh, the community at-large, and individuals historically involved in the governance of its system's hospitals.[47] UPMC is composed of three major operating components: Provider Services, Insurance Services, and International and Commercial Services.[48] The latter two divisions include the for-profit health insurance company (UPMC Health Plan) and a for-profit International and Commercial Services Division that seeks to bring health care, management, and technologies to market throughout the world. UPMC is the largest employer in the state of Pennsylvania.

Health Services Division

UPMC's Provider Services consists of an array of clinical capabilities that includes hospitals, specialty service lines (including transplantation, behavioral health, cancer care, children's health, women's health, and rehabilitation services among other centers, institutes, and services), contract services (emergency medicine, pharmacy, and laboratory), supporting foundations, captive insurance programs, and approximately 3,600 employed physicians with associated practices. Hospital activity is categorized in four distinct groups: 1. academic hospitals that provide comprehensive clinical services and specialty services and that are the primary academic and teaching centers; 2. community hospitals that provide core clinical services to suburban populations; 3. regional hospitals that provide clinical core services to broader areas of the Western Pennsylvania region; and 4. pre- and post-acute care capabilities that include a network of home health services (UPMC HomeCare) and a network of 15 senior living facilities (UPMC Senior Communities).[48][49]

Insurance Services Division

UPMC Insurance Services, operating under the umbrella UPMC Health Plan brand, was founded in 1998 and includes various for-profit and non-profit health care financing initiatives.

health reimbursement arrangements.[50] UPMC's provider networks total more than 138 hospitals and more than 16,500 physicians across Pennsylvania and has around three million members making it the largest insurer in Western Pennsylvania.[52][53] It is also ranked as one of the top commercial health plans in the United States according to U.S. News & World Report.[54] Also included in the Health Services Division are LifeSolutions, an employee assistance program; EBenefits Solutions, a web-based human resources consulting and benefits administration services; and Askesis Development Group, a software development group for behavioral health care.[53]

International and Enterprise Divisions

UPMC's International and Commercial Services Division (ICSD) actively manages UPMC's for-profit companies that seek to commercialize its expertise in health care, advanced technologies, and management skills to global markets. Its stated goal is "to advance UPMC's mission of positively transforming the way health care is provided in the U.S. and abroad, while revitalizing the economy of western Pennsylvania."[55]

UPMC International provides health care consulting and management services around the world in areas in various areas including clinical program development, facility and construction planning, clinical investigation, clinical and administrative staff training, and health information technology, and quality, safety, and Innovation.[56][57]

UPMC Enterprises is an innovation and commercialization arm of UPMC which has invested over $700 million in about 80 different ventures in the past twenty years.

dbMotion) and strategic and commercial product development partnerships with companies such as IBM and Alcatel-Lucent. UPMC Enterprises portfolio includes such companies as ALung, and Prodiogo Solutions.[61]

Facilities

Sunset over UPMC's facilities in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, which is the location of the flagship facilities of Presbyterian, Montefiore, Western Psychiatric, and Magee-Womens hospitals as well as the home to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and other affiliated Pitt schools of the health sciences

UPMC currently operates 40 academic, community, and specialty hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds, 600 clinical locations including outpatient sites and doctors' offices, and outpatient sites; over 50 cancer center locations; more than 70 facilities for physical, occupational, speech and specialty therapies; and 20 retirement and long-term care sites.[7][62]

Flagship facility

UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside is UPMC's primary flagship medical entity[63] and represents the core of UPMC's academic, teaching, trauma, specialty and research-related facilities, serving as the system's primary academic hub and Pennsylvania's largest inpatient acute care hospital.

UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside includes UPMC Presbyterian hospital and the physically conjoined UPMC Eye & Ear and UPMC Montefiore hospitals as well as the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital that also serves as the University of Pittsburgh's Thomas Detre Hall. These facilities are all located on the western side of the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The hospitals are also physically connected to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine's Scaife Hall, the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing's Victoria Hall, Falk Clinic, three of the university's biomedical science towers, and the university's Lothrop Hall dormitory, all of which are surrounded by a variety of other academic facilities.

UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside also encompasses the UPMC Shadyside hospital campus which includes the

University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center which are located near the university's Centre Plaza Apartments student housing. The UPMC Shadyside facilities are located in the adjacent neighborhood of Shadyside
approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the Oakland-based hospitals and are connected by regular shuttle service.

Also operating under UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside is the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, located less than 2 miles (3.2 km) from the Oakland-based facilities on Pittsburgh's South Side.

Taken together, the facilities contain over 1,600 beds making it the fourth largest hospital in the United States.[64]

UPMC Presbyterian campus

UPMC's flagship facility, UPMC Presbyterian
UPMC Presbyterian

UPMC Presbyterian is the historic and academic center of UPMC and is physically attached to the primary facility of the

trauma, gastroenterology, and neurosurgery. The School of Medicine uses UPMC Presbyterian for research and graduate programs.[66][67]

UPMC Montefiore

UPMC Montefiore, part of UPMC Presbyterian, was founded as Montefiore Hospital in 1908 by the Ladies Hospital Aid Society as a hospital for Jewish physicians and patients. Montefiore Hospital affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1957 and joined UPMC in 1990. It is the home to the clinical transplantation facilities originally headed by transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl and is physically connected to UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Eye and Ear by a series of pedestrian bridges.[68]

UPMC Eye & Ear Institute

UPMC Eye & Ear Institute is located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh and is conjoined with the medical complex housing UPMC Presbyterian, UPMC Montefiore, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and associated medical research towers. UPMC Ear & Eye Institute is one of a few centers in the nation dedicated entirely to the management of problems related to otolaryngology and ophthalmology.

Clinical Laboratory Building

UPMC's nine-story Clinical Laboratory Building (CLB) opened in 2013 and cost $39 million.[69] The CLB is located in the Oakland neighborhood and is situated between Magee-Womens Hospital and UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. Much of UPMC's laboratory testing is performed within the CLB. An extensive pneumatic tube system connects the CLB with UPMC hospitals that are in the Oakland neighborhood (Presbyterian, Magee-Womens, Montefiore) to facilitate the transport of specimens from the hospitals to the laboratories.[70]

UPMC Shadyside campus

University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute
UPMC Shadyside

UPMC Shadyside is a nationally ranked, 520-bed non-profit, tertiary, teaching hospital located in the

Montefiore. As the hospital is a teaching hospital, it is affiliated with University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.[71] The hospital has an emergency room to handle emergencies, with a rooftop helipad to transport critical patients to and from the hospital.[72] UPMC Shadyside houses the flagship campus of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, a nationally ranked cancer hospital.[73]

UPMC Shadyside is part of UPMC's flagship medical entity and is located in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood, with 520 beds and nearly 1,000 primary care physicians.[74] Founded in as the Pittsburgh Homeopathic Hospital, it changed its name to that of the neighborhood of Shadyside on May 12, 1938. Shadyside agreed to be bought by UPMC on June 5, 1996. UPMC Shadyside is home to the Hillman Cancer Center, home of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

The UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, formerly titled the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is a National Cancer Institute designated cancer center and the flagship of the UPMC Cancer Centers network.[75] Founded in 1985 at the University of Pittsburgh, the center is located in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh and is connected to UPMC Shadyside via a pedestrian bridge.

UPMC sports medicine complexes

UPMC has two major facilities which are contained UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside's sports medicine operations.

UPMC Rooney Sports Complex
Southside
of Pittsburgh

The

NFL team in one location with an academically based sports science and medicine program.[76] The complex consists of four centers which include the Center for Sports Medicine, Sports Training Center, Indoor Training Center, and the Fitness and Conditioning Center.[77]

UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex

The UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, opened in 2015 in

NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins. The outpatient clinic includes orthopedic, primary care, physical therapy, concussion, imaging, and sports performance services. The training facility includes two-full-sized ice rinks, training and locker rooms, video review facility, and executive offices.[78]

Major Specialty Hospitals

UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, (CHP), popularly known simply as "Children’s", is part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the only hospital in

Southwestern Pennsylvania dedicated solely to the care of infants, children, teens and young adults well into their 20s and beyond,[79][80][81] generally stopping around age 26.[82] UPMC Children's also sometimes even treats older adults that require pediatric care.[83][84] Care is provided by more than 700 board-certified pediatricians and pediatric specialists. Children's also provides primary care and specialty care at over 30 locations throughout the Pittsburgh region, as well as clinical specialty services throughout western Pennsylvania at regional health care facilities.[85] UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh was one of only eight pediatric hospitals in the United States to make U.S. News & World Report's 2010-11 Best Children's Hospitals Honor Roll and is ranked in all ten of the specialties evaluated by US News.[86] Children's is also one of only eight children's hospitals in the United States to be named as a Leapfrog Top Hospital[87] and was ranked sixth in the nation by Parents magazine.[88]

The new facility for UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
opened May 2, 2009

UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh is a specialty hospital of UPMC, specializing in pediatrics and is located two and a half miles from UPMC Presbyterian in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Serving as UPMC's primary pediatrics facility, it was originally located adjacent to UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland. Children's is one of four children's hospitals in the state, and its emergency department is one of only two Level I Pediatric Trauma Centers. More than 500,000 infants, children, and adolescents make trips to the hospital every year.[89] Children's ranks in nine of the 10 pediatric subspecialties in the prestigious U.S. News & World Report annual Honor Roll of America's Best Children's Hospitals for 2018–2019.[90]

UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh boasts 1,500,000 square feet (140,000 m2) and has 415 beds, with a 41-bed emergency department and a 36-bed pediatric intensive care unit.[91] A ten-story research center was constructed, with seven out of the ten floors dedicated to pediatric medical research.[92][93]

UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital

UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital

UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital is a UPMC specialty hospital that serves as its primary facility for women's health. Opened mainly for women on January 19, 1911, it has offered some services for men since the 1960s. The hospital is located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh near UPMC Presbyterian, a location it has been at since its fourth year in 1915. The hospital merged with UPMC in 1999. It currently is equipped with 360 beds, an emergency room and ambulatory facilities on four floors which allows it to offer all possible services under one roof including family medicine physicians, gastroenterologists, dermatologists, rheumatologists, pulmonary specialists, orthopedists, urologists and neurologists. Magee-Womens has a staff of 2,500, of which 1,500 are medically licensed. It also operates a satellite hospital in the city's northern suburbs as part as the UPMC Passavant facility as well as 9 metro area imaging clinics. In 2011 the hospital undertook an expansion of its main facility which was completed in June, 2012. The expansion added six floors, increased the number of beds from 318 to 360 (including 14 additional intensive care rooms), and expanded the surgical and ambulatory facilities.[94][95] 10,000 births are performed at Magee each year, which accounts for 45 percent of all births in Allegheny County.[96] The hospital is built on the grounds of the home of legendary Pittsburgh political boss Christopher Magee and named in honor of his mother, Elizabeth Steel Magee.

UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital

Western Psychiatric Hospital's Thomas Detre Hall on the campus of University of Pittsburgh in Oakland

UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital is one of the nation's largest and most renowned university-affiliated psychiatric hospitals and serves as UPMC's primary psychiatric facility. For more than 60 years, UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital has been a national leader in providing best practice, research-based care and a broad array of innovative psychiatric and addiction services for children, adolescents, adults, and seniors at every stage of their recovery.

Located adjacent to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Thomas Detre Hall on O'Hara Street in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, and connected to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital by a tunnel, Western Psychiatric houses the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry and serves as a main teaching hospital for psychiatry, psychology, and social work trainees. With nearly 400 inpatient psychiatric beds and more than 50 ambulatory programs, it is one of the largest behavioral health care providers affiliated with an academic medical center in the country.

A fatal shooting incident occurred at Western Psychiatric's Thomas Detre Hall on March 8, 2012. 30-year-old John Shick, a Carleton College alumnus and former Duquesne University biology graduate student, entered the building at 1:42 p.m. with two semiautomatic handguns and shot six people in the first-floor lobby. Michael Schaab, 25, a Western Psychiatric therapist, was killed. University of Pittsburgh police arrived just after 2 p.m. and engaged Shick in a gun battle, eventually killing him. Seven people, including Pitt police officers, were injured and two, including the shooter, were killed during the incident.[97] Shick was reported to have a history of mental illness and had behaved erratically in the weeks before the shooting. Handwritten messages complaining about his medical treatment and the evils of "corporate America," floor plans and blueprints of Thomas Detre Hall, and supplies for making Molotov cocktails were found in his apartment after the shooting.[98]

Future specialty hospitals

In 2018, UPMC announced it would be constructing 3 additional specialty hospitals in Pittsburgh: a vision hospital set to open adjacent to UPMC Mercy, a 180-bed cancer hospital set to open adjacent to UPMC Shadyside, and a 620-bed heart and transplant specialty hospital set to open adjacent to UPMC Presbyterian.[99] The UPMC Vision Institute opened in the 9-story UPMC Mercy Pavilion on April , 2023.[100] A 17-story specialty medicine tower adjacent to UPMC Presbyterian broke ground in June 2022 and is targeted to open in 2026.[101]

Tertiary hospitals

The following tertiary hospitals are major full-service, referral hospitals of the UPMC system.

UPMC Mercy

UPMC Mercy