Highmark puts $1B into Allegheny expansion project

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Highmark Health, the parent company of Allegheny Health Network, is putting $1 billion into a decade-long transformation project for Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.

The funding will go toward a new cardiovascular tower and emergency department, among other upgrades, in an attempt at modernizing the hospital's technology and care delivery capabilities. The 10-year transformation plan will also include multiple other major construction and renovation projects.

The new patient tower, which is the centerpiece of the project, will house the nationally recognized services of the AHN Cardiovascular Institute (CVI). The new facility will serve as a nexus of diagnostic, medical and surgical care for patients with heart and vascular disease, including transplantation.

A multi-phased construction of the new CVI tower is expected to begin in early 2025 pending all necessary municipal and regulatory approvals, and it will open in 2030. The facility is expected to have more than 100 private inpatient beds, in addition to state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology, cardiac surgery, stress echocardiography, wound care, nuclear medicine and other procedural spaces. 

It will house a dedicated cardiovascular intensive care unit, multidisciplinary cardiovascular clinics, physician offices and an outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program.

The ground floor of the tower will also accommodate the newly expanded and upgraded emergency department.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT

Like AHN's other recently opened new facilities, Highmark said both caregivers and patients will play a role in helping to design the new CVI tower and emergency department.

The tower's large inpatient rooms will boast ample space and natural light. Equipment will be selected and stationed to maximize safety, and patients will be able to control their own room temperature, lighting and entertainment with the touch of a button. The rooms will also feature digital capabilities for virtual clinician consultations and for patient families to remotely join discussions with care teams.

The hospital has received "A" grades from Leapfrog for the quality of its programs, and recently earned Magnet certification for nursing excellence. AGH is also one of the top-performing organ transplant centers in the state.

To minimize disruption to the community and patient care, construction of the new CVI tower will be undertaken in a phased process that will begin with a sizable expansion of the hospital's emergency and trauma services, and rerouting of patient and ambulance traffic to it.

Assembling all CVI care in the new tower is expected to allow for better positioning of other key medical disciplines and services across the campus, and make way for additional significant capital investments, including renovation and modernization of the hospital's operating rooms, the transition to all-private inpatient rooms elsewhere on the campus, upgrades to lobbies and other common spaces, and the future construction of a new medical office building.

One such project already underway at the hospital is the creation of a new hub for the AHN Neuroscience Institute. The hospital's five-story former cancer center at the corner of Hemlock and James Streets is being renovated to house a one-stop location providing comprehensive diagnostic, medical and surgical care for neurological diseases.

THE LARGER TREND

The move follows approval last fall of the AGH Institutional Master Plan by the City of Pittsburgh. The plan serves as a standard framework for large institutional development within the city, and AHN said it will continue to follow all required approval processes for planned construction projects on the AGH campus.

AHN president Jim Benedict said the development plan for the hospital is expected to create hundreds of construction jobs.
 

Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.