Algirdas Butkevicius, the prime minister of Lithuania, has taken part in a signing ceremony to effectuate a partnership between Pittsburgh-based UPMC and Baltic healthcare company GK Klinika Group, according to a UPMC news release.
As part of the 15-year agreement, UPMC will help with project planning, construction, training and co-management of all clinical and administrative functions of a new, 100-bed cancer hospital in Vilnius, Lithuania. The hospital, which was funded by GK Klinika Group, is scheduled to open in 2017.
UPMC staff — who will help with health IT planning, early cancer detection program development, genomics-testing pilot projects and providing disease-specific treatment algorithms — may spend up to a week at a time at the new hospital but will not be based in Vilnius permanently, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report.