A $17 billion world-renowned health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. UPMC provides more than $900 million a year in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region’s most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates 80,000 employees, more than 30 hospitals, 600 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites, and a 3.2 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical insurer in western Pennsylvania. As UPMC works in close collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks UPMC on its annual Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals. UPMC Enterprises functions as the innovation and commercialization arm of UPMC, and UPMC International provides hands-on health care and management services with partners on four continents. For more information, go to UPMC.com.
The ARNAS Civico e Benfratelli – Giovanni Di Cristina – Maurizio Ascoli Hospital in Palermo is southern Italy’s largest health care facility. ARNAS Civico Hospital is committed to cooperation with, and development of, national and regional programs in emergency medicine, transplantation, mother-child health, and oncology. It also carries out training and research activities in biotechnology. In addition to health care and research, the hospital organizes training/refresher courses accredited by the National Commission for Continuing Medical Education (CME). Civico Hospital is committed to humanitarian medicine for citizens of developing countries in cooperation with major international organizations. The hospital hosts the Pediatric Unit of the University Mother-Child Health Department, the Infectious Diseases and Virology Institute, the Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases Specialization Schools, and the Undergraduate Degree Program in General Nursing of the University of Palermo. ARNAS Civico Hospital serves as headquarters of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Regional Committee and the 118 Emergency Service for the provinces of Palermo and Trapani.
The Ri.MED Foundation, established by the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers to encourage the socioeconomic development of Sicily and Southern Italy, is a public-private partnership management model based on a scientific collaboration agreement between the United States of America and Italy. Ri.MED is a non-profit foundation that focuses on the development of biotechnological and biomedical translational research approaches, the dissemination of scientific know-how, the training of qualified professionals in life sciences, and the development and management of research centers and laboratories. Ri.MED is currently involved in the realization in Carini, near Palermo, of the Biomedical Research and Biotechnology Center (BRBC), a research center that will place Sicily in the forefront of biotechnology and biomedical research in the whole Mediterranean region. Ri.MED has its offices in Palermo, where the computational biochemistry laboratories are also located; its regenerative medicine and biomedical research laboratories are at ISMETT IRCCS, while the structural biology laboratories are at ATeN Center of the University of Palermo. Ri.MED is also involved in several projects with research centers of the University of Pittsburgh. Ri.MED’s research combines traditional R&D approaches with innovative approaches of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Ri.MED’s therapeutic areas of interest include oncology, neurodegenerative diseases, as well as metabolic, cardiovascular, infectious and inflamatory diseases, and organ failure. The diverse nature of its founding members – the University of Pittsburgh, the Italian National Research Council (CNR), and UPMC – and the strategic partnership with ISMETT IRCCS, have facilitated the exchange of knowledge among doctors and researchers, using a bench-to-bedside approach, integrating basic research, preclinical development of new therapies, medical devices and biomarkers, and clinical experimentation, with the ultimate goal of improving public health. In June 2017, the Ri.MED Foundation entered the governance of ISMETT IRCCS.
