Allegheny Health Network expands presence in Fayette County

Allegheny Health Network is taking aim at the health services market for pregnant women in Fayette County with the opening of an outpatient center, nine months before WVU Medicine reopens the maternity unit at Uniontown Hospital.

AHN recently opened a 27,500-squarefoot outpatient center in Uniontown, where it will offer specialty clinics, including cardiac and orthopedic surgery, sports medicine and obstetric care in cooperation with Preferred Primary Care Physicians Inc., an independent medical practice based in Bethel Park that has more than 25 locations in Western Pennsylvania. X-ray, mammography and ultrasound screening will be among the services offered at the office.

Obstetrics and midwifery care will be offered to women in coordination with AHN Jefferson Hospital, which has labor and delivery services about 45 minutes away. Women with substance abuse issues will be referred to AHN’s Perinatal Hope program.

AHN previously had two offices in Uniontown, Preferred Primary Care had one, all of which will be consolidated in the new outpatient clinic.

“PPCP has been delivering primary care in Uniontown for over 30 years and we welcome new, high value specialty care when it comes to this area of need,” CEO Greg Ehrhard Jr. said in a prepared statement.

Meanwhile, Uniontown Hospital, owned by Morgantown-based WVU Medicine, plans to reopen its maternity unit in January 2025. The 13-bed unit closed in 2019 when the then independent hospital ended its partnership with UPMC and ran into financial problems.

AHN is not the only health care system with expansion plans in Fayette County. Penn Highlands Healthcare, based in Clearfield County, owns a 61-bed hospital in Connellsville that dates to 1891. Former UPMC neurosurgeon Ghassan Bejjani, who was named chief of Penn Highlands Neurosurgery in 2019, has offices in Uniontown and Westmoreland County.