Children’s to relocate

Children’s Hospital will be picking up and moving to the old St. Francis hospital building in… Children’s Hospital will be picking up and moving to the old St. Francis hospital building in Lawrenceville.

The move, which won’t happen for more than five years, is aimed to “reduce congestion and confusion in Oakland” and give Children’s Hospital more space and a chance to expand, said Dean Walters, director of public and government affairs.

“We can’t wait to get into a new facility,” Walters said. “The demand is high for renovating and expanding Children’s Hospital.”

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Children’s Hospital, St. Francis Health System, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and Jameson Health System worked together to reach a $520 million deal regarding the Lawrenceville site.

Children’s Hospital agreed to buy all of St. Francis’ assets and take over all its debt, allowing it to acquire the vast amount of medical equipment and the 10 acres of land the Lawrenceville site occupies, according Walters.

According to Jean Edwards from Highmark media relations, Jameson Health System’s agreement included acquiring certain assets of St. Francis Hospital of New Castle and the consolidation of St. Francis’ Cranberry operations with UPMC Passavant.

St. Francis is closed to patients as of Sept. 6, but “we still have behavioral health outpatient care services open,” said Shirley Freyer, vice president of public affairs.

St. Francis will close its doors for the last time on Oct. 18.

“We are sad to see St. Francis’ doors close, but we are also very excited that something so good can come from this,” Walters said.

UPMC is working with St. Francis to try to place as many of the St. Francis employees as possible.

Out of 800 workers, about 350 St. Francis workers have already secured jobs at UPMC and about 260 still have interviews with UPMC, Freyer said.

“We feel in a way that [St. Francis closing] was inevitable and in many ways unfortunate, but we are very grateful that we can put the Lawrenceville site to good use,” said Jane Duffield, UPMC spokesperson. “We believe that by locating Children’s hospital in that area, it will benefit the Lawrenceville community.”

Duffield said that Highmark has a long-term contract with Children’s hospital and worked with them to come up with a deal.

“[The deal] helped us secure hospital contracts for our Highmark members and worked with UPMC to come up with a plan to provide economic development for Lawrenceville,” Edwards said. “It also provides opportunities for the St. Francis missions to be carried forward with a new Children’s hospital.”

According to Edwards, this will make Children’s hospital second to none in the nation.

“The goal right now is that the hospital [in Lawrenceville] will open in 2007, which is a year sooner than the original plan with the site next to the Montefiore building,” Walters said.

The architects working on Children’s are collaborating conjunction with Oxford management to transfer the construction that they have been working on at the Montefiore site over to the Lawrenceville site, according to Walters.

Plans include renovating St. Francis’ south wing for inpatient care services, the north wing and part of the parking lot will be tore down and a new bed tower and inpatient care services will be erected.

These alterations will double the amount of parking spaces from 700 to 1,500 at the Lawrenceville site, along with leave room for future expansion.

Renovations include 297,000 square feet of new space at the Lawrenceville site, according to Walters.

“We’re not going to be as close as we were before physically, but we will still be working closely with UPMC. We’re still working out the details of future planning,” Walters said.

It is still undetermined what will come of the present construction site on Fifth Avenue, but the current Children’s Hospital building will handle the overflow at Presbyterian hospital, Duffield said.

“[UPMC] will be providing active transportation among and between campuses from one hospital to another,” Duffield said.

According to Duffield, the UPMC hospitals in Oakland will be specializing in several larger clinical studies, Children’s hospital in Lawrenceville will focus all pediatric research and Shadyside hospital concentrates on cancer research and studies.

“The Lawrenceville site is now going to be a building dedicated solely to pediatric research,” Walters said. “Now we will have one specific area dedicated to the specific clinics that Children’s caters toward.”

Children’s Hospital’s pediatric care is ranked sixth in the country, according to the U.S. World and News Report, Walters added.

“It’s a great move, not just for Children’s hospital, but with the Lawrenceville community,” Walters said. “It can only have one effect and that will be a positive one on the community.”