UPMC Passavant expanding surgery services at Cranberry campus
The number of surgical procedures happening at UPMC Passavant-Cranberry is on the rise.
In 2023, surgeons at the Cranberry Township campus of the hospital performed 3,203 procedures. That number went up to 3,319 in 2024. This year to date, 1,982 procedures have been logged, and UPMC Passavant’s vice president of operations Zachary Lenhart Lenhart said he expects that number to rise to around 3,400 by the end of the year.
The expansion is designed to keep patients closer to home for care that previously may have required a trip to UPMC’s McCandless campus or other Pittsburgh facilities, Lenhart said, noting the changes will allow the hospital to treat a wider range of conditions.
“Our main campus at McCandless is really our big tertiary center … where we focus on doing our more complex surgical procedures,” he said. “Our Cranberry facility, which is 10 minutes down the road, serves more as a low-acuity setting, where we’re doing outpatient-focused procedures.”
He noted that the largest areas of focused growth have been general surgery, plastic surgery (breast reconstruction), gynecological surgery, orthopedic surgery and surgical oncology.
“The hospital has been deliberate in expanding its surgical footprint,” Dr. Melanie Ongchin said. “Not only is volume growing year to year in all specialties, but the complexity of cases we’re able to handle here has changed dramatically.”
If someone is in need of a more minor procedure, officials said they feel comfortable sending them to Cranberry, which in turn lessens the burden and wait times at UPMC Passavant in McCandless Township.
“We find that traveling to Pittsburgh can be a challenge,” Lenhart said. “Once you cross those rivers, people get a little crazy. So we’re trying to keep folks as close to home as possible — whether in the North Hills, Butler or Beaver — by providing advanced technologies here.”
One of the main areas of focus has been to grow the surgical oncology department, which Ongchin spearheads.
“We see many patients with stage IV cancers,” she said.
The Cranberry campus is working with patients who need to receive high doses of chemotherapy and providing treatment for those with liver disease, she said, listing a few of the location’s capabilities.
The intention, she continued, is to make patients feel more secure about their upcoming procedures.
“The benefit of Passavant is that patients can receive equivalent care to what’s downtown, but in a more community-centered environment,” Ongchin said. “They can recover and get treatment closer to home, working with their local physicians while still having access to academic-level expertise and trials.”
It's not just surgery, either. UPMC officials are touting a broader initiative to improve facilities in suburban locations, with a focus on accommodating population growth in southwestern Butler County and the surrounding region.
