AHN opens new 'neighborhood' hospital in Harmar

A gleaming new “patient-friendly,” micro-hospital was unveiled Wednesday in Harmar by Allegheny Health Network as AHN Harmar Neighborhood Hospital.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held with invited community leaders. AHN Harmar, on Freeport Road at Guys Run, is expected to start serving patients in October.

Those behind it persevered through the pandemic to get it finished, agreeing it was worth the effort to build another facility to treat Allegheny Valley residents.

The 25,000-square-foot building has two stories. The top floor serves inpatients, limited by design to around 10 beds.

All the emergency and outpatient care is on the first floor, including a full lab where test results can be produced in 12-15 minutes. With the smaller footprint of the facility, the emphasis is on efficiency.

“The big box hospital usually takes 40-45 minutes to get a regular blood count back. Here we have it really fast,” said AHN Hospital Administrator Kevin Gundlach. “So, care starts faster, testing starts faster and the patient gets discharged faster, on average within 90 minutes.”

Gundlach said the focus at the facility is on patients’ complete experience — from the time they park their car to being seen, evaluated and discharged. “Everybody is trained in phlebotomy, everybody’s trained with EKGs, everybody’s trained with ambulating the patients to the bathroom and communicating with the patients,” he said.

Among the patient-friendly design elements are nursing stations configured to maximize sightlines and accessibility.

The facility is the fourth that AHN and venture partner Emerus, a developer of what are called “micro-hospitals” in the health-care industry, have opened in Western Pennsylvania this year. AHN announced the strategy in October 2017, along with a large new hospital in Wexford scheduled to open next year.

“We look forward to delivering the same exceptional health care experience to residents of the Allegheny Valley region that we are already providing at our Hempfield, McCandless and Brentwood Neighborhood Hospital locations,” said AHN president and CEO Cynthia Hundorfean.

AHN Hospital Administrator Kevin Gundlach takes us on a tour of the new AHN Harmar Neighborhood Hospital. All emergency facilities are on the first floor. pic.twitter.com/AcR61uFsZS

— Paul Guggenheimer (@PGuggenheimer) September 23, 2020

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald commended AHN leaders for completing the facility during the covid-19 crisis.

“A lot of times people in the A-K Valley feel like they are forgotten. They are not forgotten and you obviously are investing in this community, you’ve been a part of the A-K Valley for a long, long time and I’m sure you’ll continue to be,” said Fitzgerald.

AHN’s Outpatient Center in The Waterworks mall is located five miles south of AHN Harmar, also on Freeport Road. AHN’S Allegheny Valley Hospital is in the Natrona Heights area of Harrison, a 10-minute drive north of the Harmar location.

“Three years ago when AHN and Emerus began looking at possible locations, this site was determined because the community needed better access to emergency medicine,” said Dr. Tom Campbell, chair of AHN’s Emergency Medicine Institute.

“Our members and patients in this area told us we need close-to-home in-network access to an AHN emergency department. Those who live around here especially know that as the Route 28 corridor can be very busy and slow when 28 is under construction.”

Harmar Township Supervisor Lee Biermeyer said he was proud and honored to see AHN Harmar ready to serve the entire region.

“It’ll not only cut down the trips into the city for people that have an immediate emergency where they need to be treated or stabilized and then moved on elsewhere, but it has an immediate purpose. People can come here and get treated first.”