1 week Ago
Dr. Donald Yealy, CMO and Senior Vice President of the Health Services Division at UPMC, was the guest speaker at the Washington County Chamber of Commerce breakfast event on Friday. “If you ask me to reframe the UPMC mission statement, I would say to you it’s doing the best we can for the most people, not doing the most for a few,” said Dr.
Donald Yealy, CMO and Senior Vice President of the Health Services Division at UPMC. “We want to serve the most people we can, delivering the best care we can.” Yealy was the guest speaker at the Washington County Chamber of Commerce breakfast event on Friday, where he discussed the recent merger of UPMC Washington and UPMC Greene, along with plans for the Washington and Greene hospitals.
In June, UPMC’s merger with the former Washington Health System became official, months after an affiliation agreement was signed. Yealy reaffirmed UPMC’s commitment to invest at least $300 million over 10 years to enhance services and upgrade the facilities in Washington and Greene, and to boost the assets of UPMC Washington Foundation to $40 million. Yealy pointed out that clinical collaborations between UPMC and UPMC Washington for oncology, pediatric specialties, women’s health, and vascular care had been in place for more than a decade, providing care for more than 10,000 patients annually.
“We’re looking at new opportunities in gastroenterology, thoracic surgery, and other specialties where maybe challenges or opportunities exist in delivering that type of care to people in Washington and Greene communities, and we can bring the heft and the background of UPMC,” said Yealy. He said UPMC is looking at ways to build care opportunities that are accessible to people who have a health care need. With that in mind, he said, UPMC is taking over the operation of 89 MedExpress Urgent Care locations – including MedExpress sites in Washington and Peters Township – over the next six months.
UPMC also operates 33 of its own urgent care sites across the commonwealth. “So, the footprint will quadruple,” said Yealy. “This will allow us to meet people where they need care – and how they need care – as efficiently and effectively as possible.
” Yealy also discussed a partnership between UPMC and Ambulance and Chair EMS that enables paramedics to carry blood on ambulances and administer blood to patients with critical blood loss in the field to increase survival and recovery rates. Ambulance and Chair EMS is among the first in the region to carry blood on ambulances to serve the county’s predominantly rural communities, which are at a greater distance from hospitals and trauma centers. The program also will be introduced in Greene County, Yealy said.
“The longer you bleed, the worse you do. We rolled out the program in Washington County about two months ago, and seven people have already gotten a transfusion of blood at their moment of greatest need, two of whom were pregnant, and it changed the outcomes,” noted Yealy. “Here, it’s not just life-changing medicine, it’s life-saving medicine.
” Yealy also gave an overview of UPMC, the largest non-governmental employer in Pennsylvania, with more than 100,000 employees. The health care organization is comprised of 42 hospitals across the state, with about three-fourths of them community hospitals “that look like Washington,” said Yealy, and more than 800 physician and outpatient locations. The system is served by more than 5,000 physicians, and UPMC is the second-largest trainer of resident physicians and fellow physicians in the United States.
He also noted UPMC is in the middle of a more than $200 million transformation of its entire electronic medical record platform to better track patients’ medical information. Said Yealy, “There are a lot of possibilities in front of us for tomorrow. We’re looking forward to this opportunity.
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