UPMC sees jet as a key tool in quest for global reach

As the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center searches the world for new revenues and exporting opportunities, hospital administrators say a key tool in the nonprofit's quest to become a "global health enterprise" is a multi-million dollar jet. Flight plans submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration during an eight-month period in 2007 and a 40-day period in early 2008 show slightly more than half of all of the jet's trips were taken internationally. Many of these were to or from cities in Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where UPMC has existing arrangements with local hospitals and cancer centers. UPMC Vice Chairman Mark Laskow acknowledged that other nonprofit healthcare systems do not typically lease private airplanes, but "they are not generating intellectual capital of the kind we are creating."