University Times

HARRISBURG — Rather than swallowing up hospitals and invading other medical centers' turf, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center System (UPMCS) usually is on the receiving end of affiliation bids these days, Pitt administrators told the state House appropriations committee March 3.

Chancellor Mark Nordenberg pointed out that UPMCS is a distinct corporate entity from Pitt, but said: "As a member of the executive committee of the board of UPMCS, my observation over the last year has been that more and more hospitals, practices and systems are actually approaching us, seeking one form of affiliation or another." Nordenberg said these suitors believe that "linking with a major academic medical center provides the best hope not only for their survival but for their ability to sustain services in their areas." Thomas Detre, senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences, added: "What they [unaffiliated hospitals and practitioners] fear is that a major for-profit company will move into their areas, which will then pay very little attention to the community's needs." Nordenberg and Detre were responding to a question from Democratic Rep. Thomas A. Tangretti about plans by UPMCS to expand in his home county of Westmoreland. Tangretti asked if UPMCS had considered whether the move would hurt the Westmoreland Regional Health System, one of the county's largest employers.

Nordenberg said he couldn't speak for UPMCS's actions in Westmoreland County but said UPMCS has practiced "good citizenship" in the Pittsburgh area — "that is, trying to determine not only what is best for UPMCS but what is best for all" health care providers in the area.

Tangretti commented that he hoped UPMCS would not attempt to run the Westmoreland health system out of business.

Except for the brief discussion of UPMCS, Pitt's 35-minute hearing before the House committee was largely a replay of the Feb. 25 Senate hearing. Pitt administrators fielded questions — all polite — from legislators who praised the University's achievements but offered little encouragement that Pitt will receive significantly more than the 2 percent state funding hike that Gov. Tom Ridge has proposed for FY98.

"I think the hearings were not dissimilar," Nordenberg said afterwards. "Each, I think, was characterized by a professional exchange of views. Some of the specific questions were different but they all seemed to reflect genuine interest in higher education and its relationship to the Commonwealth and its priorities.

"It is my sense that members of the legislature are frustrated because they want to do what is right by higher education, but at the same time they feel very real constraints in terms of competing demands and the monies that are available to distribute." Speaking of Pitt's own fiscal constraints, the chancellor told the University Times: "There may be something more there [to cut] but I don't think we are working in an institution where there is any longer low hanging fruit." Nordenberg told House appropriations committee members, as he told their Senate counterparts, that the difference between Ridge's proposed 2 percent increase and Pitt's request for a 8.9 percent state funding hike equals a 3 percent tuition increase. That would be in addition to the 4.5 percent tuition increase Pitt's administration had planned if the University got the full 8.9 percent appropriation increase it's asking for.

After the hearing, the chancellor said any talk of specific tuition hikes is "speculative" at this point. "But clearly," he added, "if the appropriation is significantly below that which we have requested, we really are going to have to look seriously at tuition increases that are much larger than we would like, even if there is political fallout and even if they are painful in other ways."

— Bruce Steele