Skip to Navigation
University of Pittsburgh
Print This Page Print this pages

February 6, 2003

UPMC division to address health care disparities

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) this week announced the formation of the Division of Community Health Services. The overall goal of this new division will be to focus the clinical, administrative and research talents and resources of UPMC on the elimination of health care disparities.

“This new division gives strength and structure to our commitment to eliminate health care disparities and serve the disenfranchised,” Jeffrey Romoff, UPMC president, said. “Through focused efforts, we will work with communities and the University of Pittsburgh’s Schools of the Health Sciences to improve local health care as well as develop reimbursement structures and aggressively pursue governmental and private foundation support to insure the economic viability of community services in these times of shrinking health care dollars. We hope to become a model for the nation.”

Community health centers are central in the Bush Administration’s plan to help the 41 million uninsured in the nation get the health care they need. However, industry analysts maintain that in order for these health centers to be successful, they need to be part of an integrated health system like UPMC.

George Board, current vice president of Governmental Relations for UPMC, will be the senior vice president of Community Health Services, and Jeannette South-Paul, chair, Pitt’s Department of Family Medicine, will be the medical director. Board and South-Paul will report to the Office of the President. A committee of the UPMC Board of Directors will oversee the division.

The goals of the new division are to:

• Address health disparities by strengthening the UPMC-based Community Health Centers’ accountability, delivery and quality of care. These improvements will help UPMC’s centers compete for the $1.3 billion in federal funding that is available to high-quality community programs through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services;

• Expand the reimbursement structures that currently support inpatient care to include prevention services, community-based care and ancillary services;

• Provide support and infrastructure for system-wide initiatives, such as the Diabetes Initiative;

• Involve and deploy the talents of UPMC leaders and clinicians in partnerships with communities to address health disparities and community health.


Leave a Reply