The PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar, which was formerly Mercy Catholic Medical Center, is now managed by Penn Medicine and the Public Health Management Corporation as a new public-health campus intended to reduce West Philadelphians’ reliance on the emergency room. “My hope is, as technology continues to evolve, it is a hospital without beds, with heavy emphasis on primary and preventative care,” said Kevin Mahoney, chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), in an interview with Insider. “It is providing other health services that the community needs.”
See more in Business InsiderFor many decades, Mercy Catholic Medical Center – Mercy Philadelphia Campus (originally known as Misericordia Hospital when it was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1918) at 54th and Cedar Avenue was an anchor health care institution in West Philadelphia, providing essential services to its surrounding communities. When financial difficulties put it at risk of closure in 2020, several health care organizations in the region — including Penn Medicine, Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Independence Blue Cross — formed a coalition to ensure that the hospital campus would continue to connect community residents to essential health services.
But the coalition’s plans extend beyond just keeping the hospital as a traditional safety net. “We want to create an innovative public health campus,” said Dorie Heald, MBA, director of Business Development at UPHS, explaining that the group’s vision is to “transition the hospital into a central medical hub that offers medical, behavioral and social services to meet community needs.”
Read more about the March 2021 transition of Mercy to the new public health campus, and the welcoming of many employees to Penn Medicine’s new HUP—Cedar Avenue facility in HUPdate and in the Philadelphia Inquirer.