Excela Plans to Keep Growing in Region

By Jennifer Reeger

Excela Health’s recent acquisition of Mercy Jeannette Hospital will not mark the end of its growth.

In fact, the Westmoreland County-based health system will look for ways to expand its reach in the coming years, its leader said at a breakfast meeting Thursday.

“Whether or not that’s a merger or other affiliation remains to be seen,” said David S. Gallatin, Excela’s chief executive officer. “The message is we want to continue growing.”

Gallatin and other Excela Health officials spoke to about 100 community members, government officials and business leaders at a meeting held at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel near Greensburg.

While Gallatin said there are no specific plans in place, the health system will be looking for ways to expand and new partners to work with.

Gallatin reflected on the growth of Excela since its inception in 2004 when Westmoreland Regional, Frick and Latrobe Area hospitals merged.

At that point, the three hospitals had lost a combined $27 million over a five-year period.

Profit margins increased from negative percentages to a positive margin of 2.4 percent in 2007.

The three hospitals combined spent $90 million between 2000 and 2004 on capital projects. That will more than double in the four years beginning in 2005, Gallatin said.

He said Excela “spent the first four years really getting our act together.”

Now, the system is preparing to embark on a strategic plan to improve clinical services and its operations and to grow over the next several years.

Part of that growth was the acquisition of Mercy Jeannette, now known as Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital at Jeannette.

Gallatin said Excela paid $16 million to acquire the facility and will invest $10 million at the site over the next five years, particularly in improving the emergency department and information technology.

The facility is being run as a department of Excela’s Greensburg campus.

“The losses that Jeannette has had over the last few years proved it was unsustainable as a stand-alone organization,” Gallatin said.

Kim Hollon, newly hired chief executive of hospitals and executive vice president for the health system, said the health system is establishing “Centers for Excellence,” focusing on different health care specialties at each of the campuses.

A Center for Cardiovascular Medicine opened last year at the Greensburg campus. That facility will house all of the health system’s obstetrics beginning in July.

A Center for Neurosciences will open at the Latrobe facility in 2009.

Gallatin and Hollon said such centers attract physicians and patients to the health system.

“We’ve been able to keep many more patients in our region,” Gallatin said.

In fact, the health system’s medical staff covers 35 specialties, from allergy and immunology to urology.

“There may have been times in the past people had to go to Pittsburgh hospitals, and that you no longer have to do,” said Dr. James Adisey, president of the medical staff at Excela.

(c) 2008 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.