Jefferson Hospital to launch new OBGYN unit

It has been a generation since a hospital in southwestern Pennsylvania opened a brand new obstetrics and newborn unit, but that changes Monday when Allegheny Health Network’s Jefferson Hospital begins seeing its first expectant mothers.

Across the region, and the country, money-losing obstetrics units have been consolidating or shutting down altogether, particularly at suburban or rural hospitals. To Pittsburgh’s southeast, the closure of Monongahela Valley Hospital’s OB unit in 2007 and UPMC McKeesport’s in 2000 left a void for mothers in that area, said Louise Urban, Jefferson’s new CEO, at a Wednesday ribbon-cutting for the new unit.

Annually, there are about 3,700 children born to mothers in the Jefferson Hospital service area, and 3,000 of those head to a Pittsburgh hospital to give birth, according to a needs assessment conducted by the hospital. Jefferson hopes its new eight-bed Women and Infants Center can capture 500 of those in the first year.

“Women’s health service and obstetrics service were a major need” for the region, Ms. Urban said. Now, South Hills and Monongahela Valley mothers can have access to those services “without having to travel to the city.”

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who has eight children and knows better than most the value of having an obstetrics unit close to home, said Highmark’s investment in the South Hills was encouraging.

The fact that so many obstetrics units closed regionally, while part of a national trend, “was a little bit market-driven,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “We weren’t growing” as a region, and with young families moving away, OB units were an easy service to chop.

But in May 2013, Jefferson’s board of directors formally voted to add obstetrics to its lineup of services, a first for the 41-year-old hospital. Highmark agreed to pay for those renovations, and others, as part of the agreement to buy Jefferson Regional Medical Center.

So unusual was the plan to build out the $17 million obstetrics units that state Health Department officials, when first notified of the plan, didn’t know what to make of it, said John Dempster, former CEO of Jefferson.

“They’re used to closing obstetrics units,” said Mr. Dempster, who is now an administrator within AHN and is set to retire at the end of the year. “Not opening them.”

The 23,000-square-foot unit, on the fourth floor of Jefferson Hospital, includes the eight labor, delivery recovery and post-partum suites; seven post-partum rooms; two cesarean section rooms; a triage center; and a nursery for infants with special needs.

The unit, which also includes an Austin’s Playroom, was designed by Astorino, the Pittsburgh architecture and engineering firm. Astorino was also the architect behind AHN’s new $100 million medical mall, which opened last month in Wexford.

Jefferson Hospital, which agreed to be purchased by AHN owner Highmark Health in June 2012, also opened a new Women’s Health Center in July, at the hospital campus’s South Hills Medical Building. An open house is planned for 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. today.