Independence Health System is working to expand and consolidate inpatient behavioral health services at its Latrobe Hospital as part of ongoing changes at its three hospital campuses in Westmoreland County.
Brian Fritz, president of Independence Health’s Westmoreland, Latrobe and Frick hospitals, said an adolescent behavioral health unit is expanding from 11 to 23 beds at the Latrobe facility. Construction is underway on the hospital’s fourth floor and should be completed this summer, he said.
“That runs in concert with our 18-month plan to grow, improve and consolidate all inpatient behavioral health services for the three hospitals at the Latrobe campus over the next 18 months,” he told attendees at Thursday’s State of the County luncheon — an annual event organized by the Westmoreland County Chamber of Commerce.
County Commissioner Ted Kopas praised Independence Health’s behavioral health plan, which includes a 30-bed adult unit.
Fritz said that unit “will be the same size, with the same capacity. It will just be upgraded.”
“This capacity is most needed and most welcome,” Kopas said.
Latrobe’s city planning commission recently tabled a plan for a related outdoor activity area at the hospital and has requested more information from Independence representatives.
Kopas said other planned efforts to improve behavioral health services in the county include mobile crisis intervention units that can be dispatched from sites in Scottdale, Monessen, Greensburg, Derry and New Kensington.
He said planners are working to select a site for a proposed UPMC Crisis Intervention Center.
“The facility will accommodate people for up to 23 hours, giving them time to stabilize or be transferred to the appropriate level of care,” Kopas said.
According to Fritz, other recent or ongoing changes on the Independence campuses include:
• Relocation of a surgical institute that specialized in thoracic surgery from the Westmoreland Hospital campus in Greensburg to the Latrobe campus;
• Expansion and renovation of the Latrobe emergency department;
• Construction of a cardiology outpatient center and a bariatric surgery and weight loss center in the outlying Medical Commons 1 and 3 buildings on the Westmoreland campus;
• Addition of a fifth minimally invasive heart procedure area at Westmoreland;
• Updating of the Westmoreland maternity department;
• A new outpatient pharmacy near the Westmoreland Hospital entrance;
• Recent openings of an outpatient women’s health clinic at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant and an ambulatory care center in Connellsville.
Independence Health was formed in January 2023, through the merger of Westmoreland County’s Excela Health and the Butler Health System.
Fritz said the combined system serves a population of 750,000, ranging from Venango County in the north to Fayette County in the south. It employs 7,500 people, including 4,300 in Westmoreland County.