

Marcia E. Klein-Patel, MD, PhD, an accomplished and
innovative clinician-leader, has been named chair of the Allegheny Health
Network (AHN) Women’s Institute.
Dr. Klein-Patel will lead an Institute that encompasses
obstetrics, gynecology, gynecological oncology, perinatal mental health,
maternal-fetal medicine, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility, across
the network’s 10 acute-care hospitals. She succeeds Allan Klapper, MD, who has
moved into the role of President of AHN Wexford Hospital. Previously, Dr.
Klein-Patel served as the Vice Chair of Operations for the AHN Women’s
Institute, as well as the Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program Director at
West Penn Hospital. Dr. Klein-Patel joined AHN’s West Penn Hospital as an
attending physician and its director of resident research in 2013, when she
co-founded AHN’s first midlife gynecology and menopausal medicine practice.
Since then she has led numerous initiatives focused on improving the patient
experience and boosting operational excellence for the AHN Women’s Institute.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Klein-Patel, a dynamic physician-leader, serve as
our chair of the Women’s Institute,” said Cynthia Hundorfean, President and
CEO, AHN. “We look forward to the continued growth and success of the program
under her direction, providing exceptional medical care to our patients and
maintaining a culture of clinical and operational excellence that assures the
best patient experience across all of our care sites.” The AHN Women’s
Institute has experienced substantial growth over the past several years, with
a 70 percent growth in births since the network was formed in 2013. AHN opened
a new labor and delivery center at Jefferson Hospital in 2014 and will add
another new unit when AHN Wexford Hospital opens in 2021. The Alexis Joy
D’Achille Center for Perinatal Mental Health opened at West Penn Hospital in
2018, and a state-of-the-art Neonatal Intensive Care Unit opened there in
2019.During her time as vice chair of the AHN Women’s Institute, Dr.
Klein-Patel led initiatives to improve physician engagement, recruit new
physicians, and develop protocols for enhancing patient experience. She is
AHN’s principal investigator in a county-wide program, funded by the RK Mellon
Foundation and the RAND Corporation, to reduce infant mortality in Allegheny
County by developing and validating protocols to identify infants at high risk
of mortality. Prior to coming to AHN, Dr. Klein-Patel was affiliated with the
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and was an attending physician at
UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, where she also completed her residency. She
received her bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University, and her medical degree
and her PhD degree in immunotoxicology from the University of Medicine and
Dentistry at New Jersey Medical School.
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