If you’re familiar at all with the Pittsburgh area, you know about UPMC and the medical giant it is in that area. It has grown into a major power in the area by acquiring smaller (and some large) hospitals in the region and folding them into its network. It’s a serious force in southwestern Pennsylvania.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised then that UPMC wants to expand into this area. In a press release issued today by Hamot, it announced they are going to enter into discussions with UPMC to form an affiliation. Not sure what that means for Hamot, services, jobs and so on, but it looks like change is in the winds. Here’s the full release from Hamot:
For the past two years, Hamot Health Foundation’s Board of Trustees has been engaged in a forward-thinking process that explores Hamot’s opportunities to continue to provide nationally recognized care to the patients and communities it serves.
As part of this process, the Hamot Board has evaluated potential affiliations with larger healthcare systems, reaching out to several renowned institutions.
“We are interested in a collaboration that would enable Hamot to increase clinical quality and gain access to capital, technology, science and expertise,” said John Malone, president and CEO, Hamot Health Foundation. “Additionally, our board will determine whether an affiliation would benefit the community by balancing Hamot’s inherent strengths with the economies and innovation found in a world-class system, such as UPMC.”
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), a world-class academic medical center, is the one institution that has been most thoughtful throughout this process, and its proposed responses are consistent with Hamot’s guiding principles, the Four Cs:
“After conducting a series of meetings where we received input from the community and stakeholders, Hamot’s board agreed today to begin more detailed discussions with UPMC,” stated B. Scott Kern, Chairman, Hamot Health Foundation Board of Trustees, following today’s meeting. “While no final decisions have been made, this is an important step in the affiliation process. We will continue to work toward positive outcomes for Hamot, its patients, community and region.”
My wife and I had the displeasure of dealing with UPMC in Mercer. If the service we received there will be the same service we will receive in Erie I can assure you that St. Vincent will become a very busy hospital.
I hope Hamot’s board and the community give long and hard thought to this, especially for the employees sake.
UPMC as a system is known for being absolutely brutal to its staff, notably in its outlying hospitals. I hope members of the board talk to the front-line nurses, etc. at UPMC Northwest that serves the Oil City/Franklin area. They might also want to know why so many older, experienced workers have been pushed out.
Hamot will lose its entire identity other than the name which will be UPMC-HAMOT. UPMC will tell Hamot what they want to hear but eventually ALL programs, ALL departments, ALL treatments will be conducted as they do at Presby, whether its more efficient or not. UPMC continues to make profits (about $2 billion last year), but still continues to lay off staff, saying they have to cut back (?!) See what I mean? How do I know this? I’ve been running from UPMC — every hospital I worked at, they swallowed up, me included.
I haven’t heard anyone in the community say this is a good idea. I’ll be ashamed to say I was born there.
UPMC has a long history of agreeing to almost anything with hospitals it wishes to absorb and then once the process is completed, it agrees with nothing but expansion of UPMC, wrecking of any local services that it finds “unprofitable” and doing whatever it takes to maximize profit. This includes pay cuts to any and all non-union staff, doing whatever it has to do to destroy union rights and make certain there is no union presence, consolidation of departments and services even if that means closing entire units and suggesting that similar care can be received at a UPMC facility one hour away. One only has to witness the closure of almost all community-based obstetrics at local hospitals to realize this truth. UPMC and CEO Jeffrey Romoff have absolutely no respect for UPMC employees or patients. The only goal is expansion, more profits, and further consolidation/monopoly of the health care market.
I have been involved in the community resistance against closure of Braddock Hospital and also worked for UPMC for some time, so I speak from personal experience both as a former employee and as a concerned community member.
I urge those involved to seriously re-consider this “merger” as you will soon find out that “merger” simply means ” being devoured” with the eventual result being destruction of any community based and community involved health care.
Mel Packer, US Senate candidate in PA, Green Party
Right now the negotiations may turn on how the interests of the board members (rather than the community, patients or employees) are served. These folks are very experienced at these types of negotiations and know what buttons to press.