In the short-lived television series “Pure Genius,” a modern hospital uses futuristic technology, quick research and lots of creativity to save lives against all odds. Steven D. Shapiro said he was a fan of the show before it was canceled.
But Dr. Shapiro, the UPMC executive vice president and chief medical and scientific officer, said Friday that it provided a glimpse of where UPMC is headed with plans to build three high-tech, patient-centered specialty hospitals — UPMC Heart and Transplant Hospital at UPMC Presbyterian, UPMC Vision and Rehabilitation Hospital at UPMC Mercy, and UPMC Hillman Cancer Hospital at UPMC Shadyside.
Designing the hospitals is just beginning, but each will have research centers full of modern laboratories and the best technology, factors expected to attract even more top-flight researchers to Pittsburgh. New technology also can enhance efforts to provide telemedicine to surrounding rural counties and beyond.
The new buildings and personnel will allow UPMC to expand on its current research, which includes:
* Developing artificial retinas and using stem cells in regenerative therapies to restore vision.
* Finding ways to determine whether aneurysms require immediate repair.
* Designing anti-aging drugs to allow people to live longer, healthier lives.
* Engineering immune cells to seek out and destroy cancer cells and exposing transplant patients beforehand to immune cells from the donor as a way to reduce organ rejection.
The new cancer center will continue working on immunotherapies — methods of activating one’s own immune system to attack and destroy cancer cells. Research at the new cancer hospital will be done in “a dedicated tower where everyone is thinking about cancer,” Dr. Shapiro said.
UPMC also said it is partnering with Microsoft to provide hospital digital technologies focused squarely on patient care. Microsoft didn’t have immediate information about its collaboration with UPMC, but its website has details about the work it is proposing for the future of health care.
It shows electronic whiteboards in hallways, and offices and rooms that instantaneously provide medical records and other information, while allowing Skype-style interaction with doctors and health officials. It even shows a bedside table upon which two prescription bottles sit. The computerized tabletop allows the patient, family member or medical officials, with a tap of the finger, to get immediate and detailed information about the prescriptions.
Patients also can log their destination on whiteboard devices on the walls, with arrows lighting up in the floor to guide them to the right location.
Jose-Alain Sahel, an internationally renowned ophthalmologist and scientist who is director of the UPMC Eye Center, established one of the largest and most modern eye centers in Europe at the Vision Institute in Paris and now is using that experience in designing the UPMC Vision and Rehabilitation Hospital.
“This will be beyond what we did in Paris,” he said Friday, describing the UPMC project as transformational in providing patients with “immediate access to care” while surrounding each patient with skilled health professionals and technology. The center will include a pharmacy, optical center, cafeteria and educational units, he said.
Certain floors of the center will be devoted to research with up to 35 principal investigators and as many as 600 total employees. UPMC will collaborate with the Vision Center in Paris in its research projects.
Dr. Sahel said he also has hired a scientist with new microscope technology to provide images down to the cellular level, allowing a patient’s retina to be closely monitored on a weekly basis with cellular changes spotted almost immediately.
He said he’s anxious to get started.
“I have no patience so I hope it happens fast,” he said. “And patients don’t have any patience” in waiting for new treatments. “But we’re getting to where we wanted to be 30 years ago. Things are coming of age. Successes are on the right track.”
David Templeton: dtempleton@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578. Tweet @Templetoons.
First Published: November 4, 2017, 4:02 a.m.