Philadelphia Einstein Medical Center Studies $25,000,000 Expansion

A $25,000,000, development program to be implemented over a ten-year period is now being studied by the board of trustees planning committee of the Albert Einstein Medical Center, according to an announcement here last night by Paul J. Johnson, the Center’s retiring president.

Mr. Johnson made the announcement at the Center’s annual dinner, where Earl Pert-off was elected to succeed him as president. Mr. Johnson was elected as chairman of the Center’s board of trustees, succeeding Samuel H. Daroff, while the latter was chosen for a two-year term on the board.

The new development program. Mr. Johnson said, is envisaged to provide “some new and desperately needed buildings,” as well as to emphasize “a diagnostic program, full-time chiefs, greatly expanded research investigations, a larger and more significant educational program and, perhaps, a medical school at the Center.”

The medical Center’s 1962 annual report, compiled by the officers and Dr. P. F. Lucchesi, executive vice-president, showed that the Center, during the last year, recorded 27,602 adult admissions, 153,804 dispensary visits, 37,937 emergency ward visits, 75,477 X-ray examinations, 16,463 surgical operations, 3,936 births, 659,245 laboratory examinations, 20,411 electrocardiograms, and the service of 1,260,120 meals. In addition, the report recorded during the last year a total of 284,669 adult patient-days, of which 44,000 were given free to patients who could not pay.

Dr. Lucchesi reported that, while the State of Pennsylvania has paid the hospital an average of $8.33 per day for charity patients, the net loss to the Center for such free care amounted to $777,000, the actual cost to the institution per patient-day having been $26.