Category: Mon Valley Miscellany || By

This is a good time to remind everyone that opinions expressed at Tube City Almanac are not those of any organization, any member of my family, or any employer.

Are we clear? Good.

Because someone just gave West Penn Allegheny Health System a $19 million "F-U":

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has purchased the former Palace Inn in Monroeville and plans to turn it into a health center.

UPMC announced today that it has closed on the sale of the building on Mosside Boulevard, paying $18,975,000 ...

The new UPMC adult outpatient facility will include outpatient clinics, diagnostic imaging services such as CT scans, X-ray, ultrasound and mammography, an ambulatory surgery center, an urgent care center and physician offices. (Post-Gazette)

. . .

The Palace Inn at the intersection of William Penn Highway and Route 48 is just about within sight of Forbes Regional Hospital, which has held a near monopoly on hospital care in Monroeville since opening in 1978.

(Trivia question: What was the original name of the hospital that became Forbes Regional?)

Forbes is operated by West Penn Allegheny, UPMC's only real rival in the Pittsburgh area, and it's used by plenty of people from the Mon-Yough area.

I had a hard time finding comparable data for both systems, but in 2006, Moody's reported that West Penn Allegheny had 23 percent of the local health care market.

UPMC, on the other hand, had a 47.7 percent share of the healthcare market in Allegheny County --- and that was before UPMC bought Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Assuming that UPMC retained many of the former Mercy patients, it's now serving well over half of the hospital patients in Western Pennsylvania.

. . .

In general, competition is a good thing. On the surface, this seems like a great thing for the east suburbs. After all, Monroeville residents have never had a choice for hospital services. Now, the region's largest teaching hospital is opening a major facility right at the heart of the municipality.

But there's some question whether UPMC wants consumers to have a choice. (Take a look at this 2002 story from the Pittsburgh Business Times.)

And targeting West Penn Allegheny in one of its few exclusive markets seems like a strategy designed mostly to bleed the smaller system dry.

So if you use Forbes Regional Hospital, I'd watch this development with alarm.

And if you work for Forbes Regional Hospital, no one will blame you for dipping into the smelling salts today. Just lay off the nitrous oxide.

. . .

I've Been Schooled: In a comment on Thursday's Almanac, City Councilor Paul Shelly says that School Director Dave Donato was misquoted by the Post-Gazette, and was not calling for any eminent domain near the high school.

I can dig that, but if so, where's the correction from the P-G? The newspaper also reprinted the story this week for its zoned editions.

Now, if Director Donato didn't call for eminent domain, I apologize for casting aspersions.

But someone proposed the idea. And I don't apologize for casting aspersions on the idea (no matter whose idea it is) of condemning any property around the high school when there are so many vacant properties around. That's just dumb.

. . .

Trivia Answer: Forbes Regional Hospital was originally known as East Suburban Hospital.