AHN breaks ground on perioperative center at Forbes Hospital
Allegheny Health Network officials joined with community leaders Monday afternoon to break ground on a new perioperative center at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville.
Forbes received state grant funding of $1.4 million to help finance the $16 million, 50,000 square-foot facility, according to a press release.
“As Monroeville's leading provider of comprehensive health care services, our volumes continue to grow as we introduce new and more sophisticated capabilities to our clinical and surgical programs,” Forbes' president Dr. Mark Rubino said in a statement. “This substantial investment in the hospital will significantly strengthen our ability to provide exceptional care and optimize outcomes for every patient who comes through our doors.”
Last week, AHN and Highmark Health announced a $700 million regional expansion plan that includes construction of four neighborhood hospitals, a 160-bed state-of-the-art hospital in Pine and renovation of its existing facilities throughout Western Pennsylvania.
Rubino said the Forbes expansion “will optimize the experiences of patients undergoing surgical and non-surgical procedures at the hospital by expanding and enhancing the resources available to them and by advancing a more efficient and effective care delivery model.”
The expansion will double the capacity of Forbes' post-acute care unit and the cardiac procedure unit. A state-of-the-art electrophysiology lab for the treatment of heart rhythm disorders will also be unveiled.
Other highlights include “expanding and upgrading the hospital's gastrointestinal lab,” and “increasing the capacity and technological sophistication of Forbes' central sterile processing department to support the hospital's growing procedure volumes.”
AHN officials said Forbes annually admits more than 15,000 patients and, with a trauma center, logs more than 50,000 visits to the emergency department.
The facility is scheduled to open in December 2018.
Overall expansion plans announced last week has reignited between AHN and the larger UPMC health system.
Ben Schmitt is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7991, bschmitt@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Bencschmitt.
