Highmark extends its vision for care
to have more services was viewed as a positive. And when you add that layer of competition to it, I consider it a double win.”
UPMC now has a member on the business group’s board, she added, as do two of the other health systems. “They’re interested in being a good neighbor and they continue to be engaged and supportive of the initiatives we’re working on.”
All of this is happening against a national backdrop of hospital acquisitions and consolidations as financially struggling smaller, independent hospitals look for bigger partners to back them.
Locally, the dynamic has taken a harder edge as UPMC and Highmark Health carve out their shares of the provider and insurance markets before the two unamicably separate in 2019. With every new acquisition and initiative, each has staked claim to its own idea of how Pennsylvanians statewide will access health care in coming years.
UPMC last month unveiled its plans to spend $2 billion to construct three specialty hospitals designed to attract patients from all over the world with state-ofthe-art cancer, organ transplantation and vision care.
The Highmark HealthPenn State Health coupling presents a role reversal of sorts, Mr. Foreman noted: While UPMC has the lion’s share of academic teaching hospitals in Pittsburgh, Highmark now has connected with Central Pennsylvania’s leadingacademic teaching facility, Penn State Health’s HersheyMedical Center.
For mid-state residents, “I think Hershey Medical Center may be the preferred hospital for anyone who has complex and pressing medical needs,” he said.
In truth, though, Highmark Health officials appear to view Hershey Medical and the Penn State College of Medicine more as a hub from which its research and clinical expertise will reach out to parts of the central region that historically have been separated from that level of care by miles of countryside.
“This is a game changer,” said Highmark Health President and CEO David Holmberg in a release.
Following Friday’s unanimous approval of the agreement by Penn State trustees, the two organizations offered a list of five goals for the partnership:
• Develop “a value-based, community care network” for the region with a fiveyear, $1 billion investment
•Reinforce the roles of Hershey Medical Center and Penn State Children’s Hospital “as the premier destinations for advanced care in the region for adults and children, with the goal of ensuring no patient needs to leave theregion for complex care”
• Develop care models to better manage patients’ chronic conditions such as diabetes to improve outcomes and lower costs
• Develop innovative cobranded health insurance products
• Provide funding support for medical education and research at the Penn State College of Medicine.
In a historic year for health care in Central Pennsylvania, UPMC was first to act, fashioning its own network throughout the region. Now Highmark has signaled its commitment to the region and, between the two of them, the bill for the new facilities and services will be paid in billion-dollar denominations.
That left Mr. Foreman wondering, “At what point does all the capital spending sink the system?”
Ms. Hess acknowledged that “there’s always a concern” that costs will go up, but what she sees now are multiple health systems investing in their communities, offering high-end clinical services that before required hours of travel and overnight stays in unfamiliar cities.
“Historically, people would go to the major academic centers like Philadelphia or Pittsburgh if you had a rare cancer or you needed a liver transplant. It would not be unusual to even go to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore,” she said.
“Generally when you get that diagnosis, what are you looking for? You’re looking for someone who is going to provide the best solutions, the best outcome you can get, with as little disruption to your life as possible.”
It may be too early to know how high medical and insurance costs might go, she said, “but having multiple organizations is going to force more reasonableness into the equation.”