P-G: A newsmaker you should know: Mt. Lebanon doctor named local leader of medical group

Dr. G. Alan Yeasted of Mt. Lebanon has stepped into his new role as Governor of the Pennsylvania Western Chapter of the American College of Physicians, the national organization of internists. His four-year term began during the organization's annual meeting held last month in New Orleans.

Dr. Yeasted brings to his new role a wealth of knowledge and experience. He is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon. He is also an internal medicine private practice physician and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Read the full article:

• www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-south/a-newsmaker-you-should-know-mt-lebanon-doctor-named-local-leader-of-medical-group-637366 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

P-G: St. Clair Hospital ranked among top 100 in country

Two Pittsburgh area hospitals have been named among the top 100 U.S. hospitals based on overall organizational performance.

A Thomson Reuters study identified Allegheny General Hospital and St. Clair Hospital as two of the best in the country, based on evaluations in 10 key areas, including mortality rates, medical complications, patient safety, average patient stay and other clinical and patient factors.

Read the full link:

• www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-south/st-clair-hospital-ranked-among-top-100-in-country-632139/ (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Patch: St. Clair Expanding its Cancer Center

St. Clair Hospital broke ground this week on a expansion project that will increase the size of its cancer center by nearly 25 percent.

The hospital in Mt. Lebanon is building a new area for a “linear accelerator” that will be housed in a vault with 84-inch thick walls. The building will expand the existing 8,000-square-foot cancer center by an additional 1,885-square-feet.

Read the full article:

• chartiersvalley.patch.com/articles/st-clair-hospital-expanding-cancer-center (Chartiers Valley Patch)

P-G: Effort may be first here to use Twitter to help people in need

To provide needy families with a meal during the holidays, St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon has launched a campaign to raise money for a local nonprofit's suburban poverty program via the popular social media program, Twitter.

Through its #Tweet2Help drive, which began Tuesday, St. Clair Hospital will donate 50 cents to the South Hills Interfaith Ministry for every retweet of the original message from its @StClairHospital Twitter account. The goal is to raise $1,000 for Interfaith and put food on the table for 50 local families this season.

Read the full article:

• www.post-gazette.com/pg/11349/1196906-55.stm (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Trib: Mt. Lebanon Hospital to help through Tweets

St. Clair Hospital is asking Tweeters to help South Hills Interfaith Ministries provide holiday meals for needy people by participating in the hospital's upcoming #Tweet2Help drive.

SHIM, based in Bethel Park, is a nonprofit human services organization providing family and children services to the suburban poor and to refugee families living in the South Hills.

Read the full article:

• www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_770841.html (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

Trib: Hospital staff 'a little shaken' by emergency room shooting

An elderly Mt. Lebanon man, who sought treatment in St. Clair Hospital's emergency department and said he felt sick, shot himself to death in a hospital bathroom Friday night, officials said.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office said on Saturday that Milton Levine, 88, of Bower Hill Road died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.

"The whole thing is tragic, that an 88-year-old man would decide to end his life that way," hospital spokesman Rich Sieber said.

Read the full article:

• www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_746004.html (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

KDKA: Shooting Sends Officials To St. Clair Hospital

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office was called to St. Clair Hospital in Mount Lebanon after a shooting there Friday night.

According to emergency officials with Allegheny County, someone was shot in a bathroom in the hospital’s emergency room just after 10 p.m.

Read the full article:

• pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2011/07/08/shooting-sends-officials-to-st-clair-hospital/ (KDKA)

P-G: St. Clair Hospital opens three new operating rooms

Three new operating rooms, each filled with the latest technological advances, are expected to begin receiving patients today at St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon.

The 7,429-square-foot expansion was part of a $5.5 million project to address a growing patient population. The hospital had been handling 11,000 surgical cases per year, with the volume increasing by 3 percent to 4 percent annually.

Read the whole article:

• www.post-gazette.com/pg/10259/1087731-55.stm (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

St. Clair Hospital Opens Observation Unit

St. Clair Memorial Hospital opened the doors this week to its new Observation Unit, an extension to its Emergency Department.

The unit's purpose is to provide testing to determine more quickly whether the patient should be admitted or be sent home, said David Kish, director of Emergency Services at the Mt. Lebanon hospital.

Mr. Kish said patients who needed observation previously were scattered throughout the hospital, wherever there was an available bed. Now, such patients will be taken directly to the Observation Unit.

Read more: www.post-gazette.com/pg/10217/1077709-55.stm

Mt. Lebanon Medical Director And Staff Spend Decade Helping Haiti

Dr. Dayle Griffin, medical director of pediatrics at St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon, took her first trip to poverty-stricken Haiti 11 years ago. She said she's seen vast improvements over the past decade, although the Jan. 12 earthquake was a major setback.

"We're putting a drop of water into the same bucket and eventually we're going to accumulate something that's meaningful," she said.

Read more: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_669871.html?feed=51

St. Clair To Gain Two Operating Rooms

St. Clair Hospital has broken ground for the construction of three new operating rooms at its primary campus in Mt. Lebanon.

The 7,429-square-foot addition is expected to open this summer and will help accommodate growing patient volume. The hospital performs more than 11,000 surgical cases a year in 11 main operating rooms. That volume is expected to increase.

Read more: www.post-gazette.com/pg/10014/1027997-55.stm

St. Clair Hospital Adding Modern Operating Rooms

In less than a year, an area now occupied by nine parking spots will house three new state-of-the-art operating rooms for St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon.

The $5.5 million project will add 7,429 square feet of operating space, featuring rooms with operating equipment and flat panel monitors mounted to the ceiling with "booms."

The rooms will also feature high windows, and though it won't be possible to look through them, they will allow natural light into the rooms, a perk administrative vice president and chief nursing officer Joan Massella said surgeons appreciate.

Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/09295/1007319-55.stm

Teen's Rite Of Passage Benefits Hospital Playroom

When the time came for Gabe Silverman to perform his "tikkun olam" -- an act of charity accompanying the Jewish bar mitzvah coming-of-age ceremony -- he didn't have to look far for a cause to support.

A longtime hockey fan living just a few blocks from St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon, Silverman donated money he received at his bar mitzvah to stock a family playroom at St. Clair's new emergency department with toys and video games.

Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_606086.html

St. Clair Hospital Opens New Emergency Department

St. Clair Hospital unveiled its new $13.5 million emergency department Wednesday, along with plans to change the way it admits and treats its ER patients. Construction on the project began in October 2007, and includes a $500,000 grant from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, a state initiative. In addition, $487,000 from the federal Omnibus Appropriations Bill was applied to the project.

The hospital, based in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon, says it typically has the busiest emergency room in southwestern Pennsylvania, with more than 50,000 patient visits annually. So it is introducing a new health care model based on the so-called Toyota Process, to streamline the admissions and registration processes, with the goal of reducing overcrowding and patients' wait times, the hospital said in a statement.

www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2008/12/15/daily13.html

St. Clair Hospital Begins Work On New Emergency Room

St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon broke ground today on an 18,000-square-foot emergency department, with the state contributing $500,000 toward the $13.5 million construction cost.

The larger emergency department will allow for 80,000 visits per year; in the most recent fiscal year, St. Clair had 50,000 visits. It is projecting 60,000 within the next five years.

St. Clair, a 329-bed hospital, has 525 physicians and more than 2,000 employees.

Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07274/822069-100.stm

St. Clair Hospital Receives National Designation

St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon is one of six hospitals in the United States to receive the "Stage 6" designation from HIMSS Analytics, the leading healthcare information technology market research firm.

Stage 6 is a classification of hospitals that have successfully implemented information technologies across a multitude of systems, including electronic medical records, to improve quality, patient safety and planning for future business changes.

The designation was announced in a publication, "Stage 6 Hospitals: The Journey and the Accomplishments," by HIMSS Analytics, a subsidiary of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. The study assessed more than 4,300 hospitals nationally.

Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07256/816982-55.stm

State Grant Would Aid Mt. Lebanon Hospital Expansion

St. Clair Hospital's $13.5 million expansion of its emergency department might receive a $500,000 state grant.

The Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County agreed to submit an application for the money, part of what's needed to enable the Mt. Lebanon hospital to increase treatment rooms from 26 to 46.

Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_516797.html

St. Clair Hospital Could Grow To Meet Demand

Officials at St. Clair Hospital say an anticipated record number of people seeking emergency treatment could lead to a larger emergency room and changes in protocol when patients arrive.

The Mt. Lebanon hospital expects more than 52,000 people will have visited the emergency room by the June 30 fiscal year-end, compared with 49,343 in the fiscal year that ended last June and 48,578 the previous year. To accommodate the volume, hospital officials want to add 21 treatment bays to the 25 existing ones and send patients immediately to a bay so that they aren't stalled in the waiting area.

Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/southwest/s_506616.html