News Release

2003 WAS A YEAR OF ACHIEVEMENT FOR UPMC NORTHWEST

Feb. 27, 2004 — Another 100 Top Hospitals award, accreditation of its cancer care center, acquisition of new diagnostic and treatment technology, increased home care patient volume, and plans for a new unit at Sugar Creek Station highlighted achievements the past year at UPMC Northwest.

UPMC Northwest

100 Top Hospitals Award – UPMC Northwest earned its second straight Solucient 100 Top Hospitals award last fall for superior quality of care, efficient delivery of services, and outstanding financial performance. The study that produced Solucient’s honor roll of top-performing hospitals also found that the award winning facilities have higher survival rates, their patients experience fewer complications, and the hospitals have lower expenses than non-winning hospitals.

UPMC Northwest is one of only 20 medium-sized community hospitals out of 1,041 nationwide to earn a spot on Solucient’s current 100 Top Hospitals list.
“We put a lot of effort throughout the hospital into providing high quality care and having a hospital that is strong both operationally and financially, and it’s great to be recognized again for things that we’ve worked hard to achieve,” said UPMC Northwest chief executive officer Neil Todhunter.

Cancer care accreditation – After receiving its highest rating ever on a survey of its cancer care program, UPMC Northwest recently earned reapproval from the American College of Surgeons (ACOS) as a Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center. The approval means the ACOS recognizes UPMC Northwest as a center of cancer care excellence that provides a full range of services for diagnosing and treating cancer.

In granting reapproval, the ACOS specifically cited two key elements of UPMC Northwest’s cancer care program: the availability of clinical trials that evaluate new methods of screening, diagnosing and treating cancer, and the presence of a clinical review nurse who devotes her time exclusively to managing the hospital’s involvement in medical research studies.

Mammosite Radiation Therapy System – UPMC Northwest stepped up the fight against breast cancer during 2003 with a new radiation treatment option that offers several advantages over conventional radiation therapy for selected patients who qualify. With the state-of-the-art Mammosite Radiation Therapy System, treatment is much easier and faster for selected patients (the individual undergoes 10 treatments in five days, in contrast with 35 treatments over five to seven weeks with standard radiation therapy), radiation is precisely targeted to the tissue where there is the highest risk for tumor recurrence, there is minimal radiation exposure to healthy tissue, and there’s less risk of side effects, says radiation oncologist Joanne Dragun, MD.

Mammosite “adds another tool to the armament of treatment options” that UPMC Northwest – the first hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania to use the new system – can deploy against breast cancer, Dr. Dragun says.

Clinical trials – UPMC Northwest is making its mark in the National Lung Screening Trial. The hospital screened 769 persons during the first 15 months of the landmark research study, which is seeking to determine whether screening persons with a chest x-ray or CT scan can reduce deaths from lung cancer.

UPMC Northwest is one of only about 30 hospitals nationwide that were chosen as screening sites for the 50,000 current and former smokers enrolled in the trial.
UPMC Northwest also is involved in 13 other clinical trials that are evaluating experimental anti-cancer drugs and other new approaches to preventing and treating cancer. Among them: the Mammosite RTS Clinical Study, which is comparing the hospital’s new Mammosite system with conventional radiation therapy for the treatment of breast cancer.

New physicians – Eight doctors joined the UPMC Northwest medical staff during 2003: internist/pediatrician Donna Anderson, MD; emergency physician Randy Boggess, DO; hematologist/oncologist Alex Calvo, MD; family practitioner Daniel Lovestrand, MD; psychiatrist Harshad Patel, MD; wound care specialist Thomas Serena, MD; internist Jay Stevens, MD; and radiation oncologist Duk Sung, MD. Physician recruitment for 2004 is under way, and the hospital hopes to enlist several more doctors to begin practicing locally this year.

UPMC Northwest Foundation

Branching Out – After successfully concluding its 2003 Annual Appeal that generated funds for unbudgeted equipment and services at the new hospital in Cranberry, UPMC Northwest Foundation launched its 2004 Annual Appeal known as Branching Out. Through Branching Out, individuals and organizations can enhance the new hospital landscape by purchasing any of several varieties of trees that will be planted around the new hospital.

The appeal is giving area residents a chance to participate directly in the completion of the hospital, to recognize special individuals with honorary or memorial gifts, and to help put a finishing touch on the new hospital, says foundation executive director Roger McCauley.

Visiting Nurses Association

Home health technology – New technology is helping improve patients’ well-being while they manage their care at home. The HomMed Sentry Monitor measures patients’ weight, blood pressure and other vital signs every day instead of two or three days a week when nurses visit, and the extra monitoring helps VNA intervene before medical problems worsen.

The monitors “definitely are making a difference” for the patients who have them, says VNA nurse manager Carol Thompson, RN.

Patient care – Patient volumes increased markedly for VNA’s home health, hospice and private duty services last year. During 2003, VNA provided care for 1,677 patients (an 8.1 percent increase over 2002) and made 35,146 home health and hospice visits (an average of 96 a day). The increase in hospice patients was especially noteworthy: the average daily census in the hospice program was 19 patients last year compared to 12 in 2002 (a 58 percent increase).

VNA Private Duty provided 87,018 units of service (an average of 238 a day), up 18.3 percent from the year before.

Other highlights – VNA continued to achieve excellent marks in its patient satisfaction surveys the past year, staff members provided 2,000 flu shots at 30 sites in the fall, and a record 37 children and teenagers attended VNA’s Camp Good Grief bereavement camp.

Sugar Creek Station

Independent Living Unit – Sugar Creek Station is moving ahead with plans for its independent living unit (ILU), and it hopes to begin construction this summer.

The unit will feature several apartments for seniors who can live on their own. Each apartment will include a kitchenette, living room, bedroom and bathroom, and the ILU will have several central facilities including a dining-activity room, laundry room, and landscaped patio.

Sugar Creek Station hopes to open the new unit, which will be built in an existing hallway, by the end of 2004, according to administrator Nancy Pastorius.

UPMC Northwest’s Economic Impact

UPMC Northwest, VNA and Sugar Creek Station employ more than 1,200 area residents, pay $34 million a year in salaries, and produce $76 million in total spending annually, making the organization a driving force in the area’s economy.

UPMC Northwest also supports almost 300 more jobs that pay another $6 million dollars worth of wages, and it produces a secondary or “ripple” effect of nearly $27 million in additional spending that benefits other businesses in the region, a statewide hospital study showed last year.

“Our mission is to meet our community’s health care needs, but it’s clear that we also have a significant impact on the economy here,” Todhunter said.