The future of healthcare is actually quite simple – it lies in the community. That’s according to the managing director of UPMC Ireland, Eamonn Fitzgerald, who says the ultimate goal of the expanding UPMC healthcare network is to enhance access to care for the patients in each of the communities it serves.
“UPMC is an organisation that is very much mission focused and values driven, and our mission is to bring life-changing medicine to communities that we’re privileged to serve,” Fitzgerald explains.
The hospital group’s journey in Ireland started back in 2000 and since then UPMC has invested more than €400 million in the Irish health system: “We started with the UPMC Hillman Cancer Centre, which is contiguous to Whitfield Hospital. After that we acquired Whitfield Hospital and then UPMC Hospital Kildare, as well as Aut Even in Kilkenny and more recently UPMC Sport Surgery Clinic in Dublin.”
The group also has established partnerships with the HSE in Waterford for radiation oncology, and in Cork and Limerick with the Bon Secours Health System, but is now on the cusp of opening up a hybrid cancer centre, including both radiation and medical oncology, in December of this year in Limerick, namely The Limerick Cancer Centre
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“This will bring enhanced access for cancer patients from the midwest and further afield to integrated medical and radiation oncology, clinical trials and world-class research via the UPMC Hillman Cancer Centre model of care in partnership with the Bon Secours Health System,” Fitzgerald says.
“It’s all about building a connected network and giving people access to quality-assured, affordable and digitally enabled healthcare expanding our regional access and national reach.”
UPMC is keen to expand further and develop additional value-based healthcare partnerships with the public system, payers and other independent providers where mission, values and strategy align, he adds.
“We continue to invest significantly to enhance access to Life Changing Medicine for patients in their communities and we ultimately would like to be an all-island provider of population-based healthcare.”
This investment – and future thinking – is a reality due to the not-for-profit nature of UPMC’s operations, Fitzgerald notes: “There’s no mechanism for distribution of profit. What happens with any operating surplus we make is that it gets reinvested back in the provision of healthcare, research and innovation. We have a parent company that is very committed to bringing life-changing medicine opportunities to people outside of the US.”
The independent healthcare sector continues to play a crucial role in providing access to internationally accredited, quality-assured and digitally enabled care to people whose access is funded via private health insurance, the National Treatment Purchase Fund, HSE Access to Care or any other commissioning mechanisms that may be deployed, such as publicly procured service level agreements. Fitzgerald says UPMC is thus committed to meaningful collaboration with the Department of Health and the HSE, as well as a range of private and public payers and commissioners of health who have a similar ethos.
A key word for UPMC is connection, and the group is investing heavily in digital transformation and innovation.
“That’s a key strategic pillar for us,” Fitzgerald says. “We’re investing in an electronic health record for the totality of our UPMC network in Ireland currently. That will enable us to have a single platform right across the network in terms of a patient health record system. That will help us build layers of functionality in terms of both clinical applications and applications that will allow us to deploy artificial intelligence in a thoughtful and proactive way, to further enhance care delivery and patient experience.”
The latter point is at the heart of UPMC’s digital transformation, he adds.
“Patients benefit not just from clinical excellence but from the totality of their experience. From the moment that they have contact with their general practitioner to referral pathways to the experience of being communicated with either in digital terms on email or by phone or in person or a blending of all of those, right through to their diagnostic experience, their therapeutic experience, their rehabilitation, prehabilitation. It’s very much a relationship where we meet people wherever their journey takes them and commit to giving them the best chance at the best outcome.”
UPMC is a long-standing presence at the Future Health Summit and Fitzgerald says this involvement is emblematic of its commitment to “future health”.
“It’s about wellness and wellbeing and healthcare rather than ‘sick care’, and helping people to live in their own communities and enjoying longer, stronger healthier lives.”
It all comes back to the community. “It’s not just about the provision of healthcare to patients, which is very important, but also about giving opportunities to invest in communities, to strengthen communities, to empower communities and ultimately to say to the community: this is your community healthcare service and we want to work with you so we can foster the growth development of your community.”
