As the region’s leading employer and predominant health care system, UPMC plays a vital role in nurturing the local economy. From its support for research, education, and the arts to its environmental stewardship, UPMC’s commitment to western Pennsylvania goes far beyond its renowned patient care.
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The press might have snickered when the White House announced that Pittsburgh was the site of the next G-20 summit. But the city’s remarkable resiliency and comeback from the collapse of its core steel industry are nothing to laugh at.
As the numbers show, the city has weathered this recession better than most. Unemployment in the metro area is 7.2 percent, well below the national average, and home foreclosures remain relatively uncommon. The good news hasn’t gone unnoticed by the media: The Economist recently rated the city “most livable” in the United States, while Forbes cited it as the sixth-best city in “Ten Cities for Job Growth in 2009.”
One key to the city’s turnaround has been the growth and success of UPMC, the region’s largest employer and a major driver of its economic activity — from its construction of a new $622 million Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and research center to its rescue of the city’s last Catholic hospital (with its 3,000 jobs).
Today, UPMC is a global $8 billion health enterprise with 50,000 employees that integrates 20 hospitals, more than 400 outpatient sites, a major insurance division, and an international and commercial unit that shares its medical, management, and technology expertise around the globe. UPMC invests $250 million a year in research and education, mainly at its academic partner, the University of Pittsburgh. Fittingly, UPMC’s name is now atop new downtown headquarters in the U.S. Steel Tower, symbolizing its role as linchpin of the new Pittsburgh economy, one built on medicine, education, and research.
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UPMC’s logo atop new downtown headquarters in the U.S. Steel Tower, symbolizing its role as linchpin of the new Pittsburgh economy, one built on medicine, education and research. |
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What started as a bold idea to “dream big” and reinvigorate the city of Pittsburgh and its public schools has evolved into a 10-year, $100 million commitment from UPMC to jumpstart the “Pittsburgh Promise.”
The program, one of the largest of its kind in the country, guarantees financial support for post-secondary education to all graduates of the city’s public high schools. In 2008, more than 700 students received support from the Promise, many of whom might have been unable to seek higher education otherwise. Each graduate can receive up to $20,000. The program is expected to boost the local economy by training talented young people for the local workforce, making city living more attractive, and increasing tuition income to local colleges, universities, and trade schools.
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Jeffrey A. Romoff, president and CEO of UPMC, announces UPMC’s $100 million support of The Pittsburgh Promise. |
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When the Obama administration chose Pittsburgh as the site of the G-20 Summit, the White House cited the city's use of "new and green technology to further economic recovery and development."
That might surprise those who still imagine a region filled with smoky steel mills, the one-time source of its economic might.
Among the Pittsburgh innovators that are designing windmills and smart-grid technology to improve the efficiency of power companies, UPMC is playing a leading role in creating a new model for "green" health care - one that not only recycles medical equipment and removes mercury from its hospitals, but that also educates new parents on environmental health issues and supports research into the mysterious links between the environment and disease.
As one of the largest nonprofit health care providers in the country, UPMC's wide-ranging environmental efforts have a potentially powerful impact. Working with the U.S. Department of Energy, for instance, UPMC has designed a training program to help all hospitals better manage energy in one of the most energy-intensive sectors of the economy. The new Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC houses the Pediatric Environmental Medicine Center, which is studying the links between asthma and the environment, with the goal of providing better treatments and effective prevention of this disease.
With support from the Heinz Endowments and other partners, UPMC's award-winning green efforts include:
- Creation of a $5 million "green action fund" in 2007 to support new environmental initiatives across the health system. Projects funded to date include installation of energy-efficient heating and cooling systems.
- Commitment to green construction and renovation. The new Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC will be one of the first LEED-certified children's hospitals in the nation, thanks to the use of recycled building materials, low VOC paints and carpets, green roofing systems, water-efficient landscaping, water fixtures that reduce usage and other environmental factors. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, defines standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Likewise, UPMC's renovation of executive and administrative offices at U.S. Steel Tower won LEED-Silver certification for energy conservation and environmental design. A new tower at UPMC Passavant-McCandless and the new UPMC East campus in Monroeville are also expected to be LEED-certified.
- Development of a first-of-its-kind energy management program for hospitals in collaboration with the U.S. Dept. of Energy. UPMC serves on the steering committee of the DOE's Health Energy Alliance, a partnership with other national healthcare leaders to lower energy usage, cut costs and reduce pollution in this energy-intensive industry.
- Establishment of the Pediatric Environmental Medicine Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, with a five-year grant from the Heinz Endowments. UPMC recruited a nationally known asthma researcher to serve as the center's clinical director while leading efforts to identify how environmental risk factors impact children with asthma in western Pennsylvania.
- A ban on smoking at all health system facilities and grounds, effective July 2007, with smoking-cessation assistance offered free of charge to staff. The move reinforced UPMC's commitment to maintaining a healthy and safe environment for staff and patients.
- Elimination of DEHP and PVC plastic--toxic substances linked to birth defects and other illnesses--from medical devices used in the neonatal intensive care unit at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC.
- Purchase of renewable energy certificates from First Energy to offset 10 percent of UPMC's energy demand.
- Partnership with Duquesne Light to implement software that will put PCs into "sleep" mode at appropriate times and cut PC power usage by 50 percent.
- Donation of more than a quarter million pounds of medical supplies over the past decade to Global Links, a local, not-for-profit organization that recovers surplus medical materials from U.S. hospitals and makes them available to hospitals serving underprivileged populations in developing countries. This helps the environment, as well as needy countries, by keeping materials out of landfills.
- Promotion of paper reduction through a centralized printing services contract with Xerox, adoption of electronic medical records, and a paperless paycheck and retirement accounting systems. In addition, the health system now recycles more than 1 million pounds of paper annually and is expanding those efforts.
- Education of staff, patients and communities on environmentally sustainable practices and environmental links to disease. Magee, winner of the 2009 Partner for Change Award from Practice Greenhealth, offers a class to families on environmental health concepts and, since 2005, has included environmental education in its childbirth and newborn classes. The hospital has also sponsored the Teresa Heinz Women's Environmental Health Conference in 2007 and 2008, attracting over 2,000 attendees. Children's Hospital provides a Continuing Medical Education-accredited lecture series for residents, which focuses on environmental health issues.
- Replacement of all mercury-containing items found in patient care devices, lab thermometers, mercury switches, thermostats, and traditional fluorescent bulbs, at UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside and Magee.
- Conversion of three Magee courtyards into herb, vegetable and healing gardens. Designed by the Phipps Conservatory, the gardens will provide fresh ingredients to be used in the preparation of healthful meals for staff and patients.
Located on a half-mile stretch of land where a shuttered steel mill once stood is the world-renowned UPMC Sports Performance Complex.
Completed in 2000, the complex is part of Pittsburgh’s South Side urban riverfront revitalization and houses the indoor and outdoor training and practice facilities of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers and University of Pittsburgh Panthers football teams, as well as the highly regarded UPMC Center for Sports Medicine, a one-stop shop for specialized sports medicine care for athletes and nonathletes from around the world.
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Sprawled across a half-mile stretch of land along the Monongahela River where a massive steel mill once stood, the UPMC Sports Performance Complex, completed in 2000, represented the first big development in the exciting revitalization of Pittsburgh's South Side. The complex encompasses the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine, as well as headquarters and indoor and outdoor practice facilities for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the University of Pittsburgh Panthers football team. |
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