Allegheny General to end baby deliveries, transfer services to West Penn
Baby deliveries at Allegheny General Hospital will stop within the next year as part of an overhaul that will move inpatient obstetrics and psychiatric services to other hospitals within West Penn Allegheny Health System, officials announced Friday.
Inpatient obstetrics services will relocate from AGH in the North Side to West Penn Hospital in Bloomfield. That includes labor and delivery, postpartum, newborn nursery and intensive care nursery services, officials said. The inpatient psychiatric services will relocate to Alle-Kiski Medical Center in Natrona Heights and West Penn's Forbes Regional Campus in Monroeville.
The moves at the region's second-largest hospital network, which has sustained heavy financial losses, are part of an ongoing restructuring, Executive Vice President Dawn Gideon told employees in an e-mail.
"The decision was made after a careful review of our options for integration and with the intent to ultimately enhance the quality and scope of these programs through a more rational and effective utilization of resources ... " Gideon wrote.
The six-hospital network is looking to cut costs after losing $89 million in operations during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2008. It lost $62.8 million in the prior fiscal year.
Integration of both programs should be completed by June 30, 2010. One health care expert called West Penn Allegheny's move a tactical maneuver that will not help the system regain its vibrancy.
"If they can get some economies of scale by consolidating services in various hospitals, that makes some intuitive sense," said Jan Jennings, president and CEO of consulting firm American Healthcare Solutions. "But they are so far below water and so disadvantaged competitively with respect to UPMC, that it's really not a pretty thing to watch. It's very unfortunate."
The region's obstetrics market is largely controlled by Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC in Oakland, where nearly 10,000 babies are born every year. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in the past several years centralized maternity services at Magee by closing units at UPMC McKeesport, UPMC Passavant and UPMC Shadyside.
Those closures have occurred largely as a result of a drop in the number of babies born every year in the region. Allegheny County has seen a steady decline in deliveries, to 12,774 in 2006 from 14,249 in 2000, according to the county Health Department.
About 1,200 babies are born at AGH every year. West Penn has a larger program, with about 2,700 yearly deliveries and a recently renovated and expanded obstetrics unit. It has 18 postpartum rooms and 15 labor and delivery rooms. Its neonatal intensive care unit has 40 beds.
AGH will maintain its ambulatory clinics located at the hospital's Federal Street building. Inpatient obstetrics services will continue to be offered in Monroeville's Forbes Regional campus, officials said.
While the 28-bed inpatient psychiatric unit at AGH will close, the hospital will continue to provide outpatient services at Allegheny Center in the North Side. Psychiatric patients will still be evaluated in the hospital's emergency room.
Alle-Kiski and Forbes have a combined 80 psychiatric beds, enough to accommodate all inpatients, said West Penn Allegheny spokesman Dan Laurent.
The consolidation will free up space to expand critical care services at AGH, officials said.
