In 2001, Northwest Medical Center was a community hospital. Just five years later, UPMC Northwest is a regional destination. The community hospital joined forces with multi-billion dollar powerhouse University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in 2001, and a few years later, opened a $75 million facility in an effort to extend its regional footprint.

Neil Todhunter, President

In the last year, UPMC Northwest brought on board 15 physicians and finished above its anticipated revenue, enabling Todhunter to invest the extra capital to expand services. “This hospital marks a new beginning in regional healthcare.”

Coming together
UPMC is the premier health system in Western Pennsylvania and one of the most renowned academic medical centers in the US. The $6 billion institution has spent the last decade reshaping the healthcare landscape in its region. With an estimated 43,000 employees, UPMC is the region’s largest employer. The system comprises 19 hospitals and a network of other care sites across Western Pennsylvania: doctors’ offices, cancer centers, outpatient treatment centers, specialized imaging and surgery facilities, in-home care, rehabilitation sites, behavioral healthcare, and nursing homes.

Northwest Medical Center was formed in January 1992, after two community hospitals, Oil City Area Health Center and Franklin Regional Medical Center, merged operations. Because the hospitals were significantly aging, Todhunter consolidated the two into one replacement hospital, and with the full support of UPMC following their merger in 2001, broke ground for UPMC Northwest’s new facility in March 2002.

Strategic design
Todhunter and a team of physicians and staff spent nine months strategically mapping out a functional design for the hospital to best determine the size and location of each department. The team used that document as a resource while looking for bids and insisted to the architects the importance of the design it was trying to achieve.

The design called for the separation of inpatient and outpatient areas. “Hospitals grow and change through the years, and people end up going through a maze of corridors to get to a particular department,” said Todhunter. To make navigation easier, Todhunter centralized all outpatient services to one area so when patients or visitors come through the door, they don’t have to pass through the entire hospital.

Inpatient services were placed in areas with no internal paging, quite a contrast from the days when doctors were paged often, Todhunter explained. “Our main focus was to create a soothing, quiet environment—from putting carpet in the hallways to playing calming music during daytime hours.”

By the time the hospital opened its doors in October 2004, almost all of the organization’s aging technology had been replaced with all-digital equipment, significantly increasing its service capabilities in areas such as diagnostics and radiation. “Today, the facility meets all of our needs—processes are more streamlined, and the level of quality care is unbeatable,” Todhunter said.

Safe and sound
Todhunter and his team successfully worked to make sure the move didn’t negatively impact the quality and safety measures at the hospital. In fact, HealthGrades this year recognized UPMC Northwest as a distinguished hospital in safety for a second consecutive year, and it was named to Solucient’s top 100 hospitals for four straight years, as well as the best of the benchmark hospitals (2004) in achieving the standard for excellence
in outcomes and operational performance.

To exceed the established benchmarks, UPMC Northwest developed “Safe,” a program in which all staff members and visitors are encouraged to identify and report unsafe conditions in the hospital. The program brings about a major cultural shift in the UPMC Northwest community. Historically, employees never liked to report incidents because they weren’t comfortable pointing fingers or placing blame on someone else, explained Todhunter. “Today, we work with a blame-free, positive environment and encourage over-reporting to eliminate all risks.”

Safe has brought about myriad changes to the hospital’s processes. For instance, a staff member reported that when a patient had elevated Troponin levels, a physician wasn’t notified. The hospital took immediate action, and staff members are now required to use cardiac profile stickers to remind nurses to check results and to call physicians if needed. In another example, a patient was prescribed Tiagabine but was given Tizanidine. As a result, the pharmacy now marks each storage bin with a red alert label to caution staff on the two drugs.

New beginning
There has been no shortage of activity stirring within UPMC Northwest’s walls these last few years. From the opening of a new facility to its array of investments and added services, Todhunter and his team have set the hospital in a positive direction and are more than ready for its new beginning.

“We’ve always been a strong community hospital and resource, but our next step is to elevate that to a regional perspective. The collection of changes has taken this organization to a new level of success, not only in volume, but also in service,” Todhunter concluded.