UPMC Presbyterian

UPMC Presbyterian was founded in 1893 by Louise Wotring Lyle, the wife of Presbyterian minister Joseph Lyle.[12][13] Already having worked out informal agreements for teaching and staffing privileges with a number of local hospitals,[14] Pitt and its School of Medicine desired to establish an academic medical center, and by the mid-1920s had formed a plan with a coalition of city hospitals to have them relocate to the Oakland neighborhood of the city that the university had itself moved to in 1909.[15][16][17] The University provided Presbyterian Hospital, then located on the North Side, with a tract of land on its campus for construction of a new hospital which broke ground in 1930 and was subsequently opened in 1938.[18]

On November 1, 1926, Children’s became the first hospital in the Oakland neighborhood on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.[19]

In 1938, the new Presbyterian Hospital campus joined the Children's hospital in the Oakland neighborhood campus with the objective of providing health care and providing medical education to students of the University of Pittsburgh.[20]

In 1947, Jonas Salk took a job at the University of Pittsburgh as an associate professor of bacteriology and the head of the Virus Research Lab.[21] While at Pitt, he began research on polio and the process of developing a vaccination.[22] In 1952 Salk had created the first Polio vaccination. Salk went on CBS radio to report a successful test on a small group of adults and children on 26 March 1953 and two days later, the results were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.[23]

In the 1970's, the name of the hospital was changed to Presbyterian University Hospital. In 1986, Presbyterian merged with the nearby Montefiore Hospital to create the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, later changing the name to UPMC Presbyterian.[24][25]

In January 1986, the nearby Children's Hospital opened up a new $250 million tower that featured 210 pediatric beds and included a two-level underground parking garage and a helipad shared by Presbyterian and Children's on the top of the tower.

The old Children's Hospital location was closed on May 2, 2009 when the hospital moved to the new location in the Lawrenceville neighborhood.[26] The original building was demolished in 2011 and the main tower with the helipad remained standing until the helipad and laboratories could move over to the Presbyterian building in 2013.[27][28]

In September 2018, UPMC unveiled plans to create the new 900,000 square-foot UPMC Heart and Transplant Hospital at UPMC Presbyterian on the site of the former Children's Hospital.[29][30] The new 18-story inpatient building is projected to open in 2023 and will include 620 private patient rooms.[31][32]

In 2011, the hospital was listed among Becker's Hospital Review 50 Best Hospitals in America,[33]

In 2019, UPMC Presbyterian received an A grade from The Leapfrog Group’s Fall 2019 Hospital Safety Grade.[34][35]

As of 2020, UPMC Presbyterian has placed nationally in 11 ranked specialties and is "high performing" in 3 specialties on the U.S. News and World Report.[36]

In the 2019-20 Best Hospitals Honor Roll, UPMC Presbyterian ranked as the 15 best hospital in the United States.[37][38]

In 2017 it was discovered that five patients have died from mold infections since October 2014. An investigation into the deaths revealed that mold was found in linens on patient beds. These linens were found to have come from Paris Healthcare Linens, UPMC's linen provider.[40] UPMC then hired investigators to test hospital sites and Paris Linen facilities.[41] The mold was found in all areas of Paris and found on linens at UPMC Presbyterian. Multiple wrongful death lawsuits were filed against the hospital and UPMC has settled in few of them.[42] UPMC continues to contract with Paris in 22 out of 25 of their hospitals.[43][44] Paris was also implicated in the lawsuits and has settles out of court with the plaintiffs.[45]

• Jonas Salk
• Thomas Starzl
• Freddie Fu
• Peter Safar

• University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
• UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
• University of Pittsburgh

• UPMC Presbyterian Website
• UPMC Website