Monroeville's Forbes Hospital completes $17 million addition

Forbes Hospital in Monroeville completed work on a $17 million addition that expands its surgical, gastrointestinal and cardiac services.

The 55,000-square-foot Perioperative Center doubles the hospital’s post-acute care unit and includes an electrophysiology lab and a gastrointestinal suite, according to a news release.

Forbes’ newest addition joins the construction of a $35 million, 63,000 square-foot building serving as AHN’s only cancer and imaging center in the eastern suburbs. The facility opened in February.

“Over our more than four decades of service to the greater Monroeville community, Forbes Hospital has continued to invest significantly in new capabilities and innovations to meet the changing and increasing health needs of our patients,” said Mark Rubino, the hospital’s president, in a news release. “This amazing new Perioperative Center is just the latest example of the commitment that Forbes, AHN and Highmark Health have made to getting health care right in this community and to assuring that Forbes remains the eastern suburbs’ most preferred and trusted provider of comprehensive, high-quality health care services.”

The center’s electrophysiology lab, which offers “advanced, minimally invasive cardiac procedures,” has nine private bays in the holding and recovery areas.

Overall, the center adds 50 percent more patient care capacity to the hospital’s cardiac procedure area, according to Forbes. The lab also is linked with AHN’s Atrial Fibrillation Clinic at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and the Forbes Cardiac Catheterization Lab.

“We are thrilled to be part of this new facility and to offer the same kind of advanced care for heart rhythm disorders offered at AHN urban flagships in a suburban location convenient to many of our patients,” said Amit Thosani, AHN’s director of electrophysiology.

The center will include a gastrointestinal suite that will give patients access to endobronchial ultrasounds, endoscopic ultrasonography and bronchoscopies, which are advanced diagnostic procedures. The suite includes a recovery area with 21 private and semi-private bays.

AHN began construction on the Perioperative Center in October 2017, with an initial completion date of December 2018. Stephanie Waite, AHN spokeswoman, said most of the center was completed earlier this year, but the electrophysiology section of the addition was recently completed.

The hospital’s ambulatory surgery center also has been expanded and renovated to accommodate Forbes’ growing outpatient surgery volumes. Another component of the Perioperative Center is an expanded and technologically advanced central sterile processing facility that will enable the hospital to more quickly clean and process surgical instruments.

The opening of Forbes Perioperative Center is the second significant facility investment at the hospital this year. The new $35 million, 63,000-square-foot cancer and imaging center opened in February. The first facility of its kind in Pittsburgh’s east suburbs, the center offers patients access to coordinated, multi-disciplinary cancer and imaging care under one roof.