How healthy are South Carolina hospitals?

Page 2 of 2 Addressing labor shortages Many hospitals in the state actively work to recruit and retain physicians and nurses, a nationwide concern. In addition, the state’s nursing programs do not graduate enough nurses to meet the demand. Of the 2,000 new positions created each year, state graduates fill only half of those, according to the hospital association. The other half come from other states and other countries. The Duke Endowment has worked with a number of hospitals statewide to address the nursing shortage. Some efforts fund online education programs for registered nurses to earn their bachelor’s and master’s degrees and for continuing education. AnMed Health is working with other hospitals, Clemson University and Tri-County Technical College on a Duke-funded “LPN to Professor” program to both help prepare nurses to teach and increase nurse graduates for the future. Newberry County Memorial Hospital uses a full-time physician recruiter to help attract doctors and their families, said the hospital’s CEO, Lynn Beaseley. “You don’t just recruit the doctor, you recruit the spouse,” he said, pointing to the area’s low cost, low crime and good public schools. The hospital has success in keeping many of its physicians, some of whom have just completed their residencies. The hospital has also recruited visiting cardiologists, who rent a doctor’s office onsite for patient visits, and has three Spanish-speaking physicians to meet the needs of a growing Hispanic community. Marion Regional’s Lloyd said physicians are drawn to the hospitalist program, which has internal medicine physicians who work solely in the hospital and consult with specialists and referring physicians. “Most of the recruits we speak with want either strictly an outpatient-based practice or a strictly hospital-based practice,” Lloyd said. Moreover, he said, “physicians, both family practice and internal medicine, are relying on hospitalists much more than they have in the past.” Revamping aging facilities Many hospitals have been renovating or rebuilding facilities to meet the demand of new technology and changing patient care needs. Many of those facilities were built 20 or 30 years ago, but CT scans and MRIs and new computers require additional power, and changing inpatient and outpatient needs require flexible designs. AnMed is spending up to $13 million on upgrading electrical systems as part of its four-year renovation. It chose to update and expand its facilities over the next four years rather than build from scratch. “We already have state-of-the-art cardiac care, so part of this renovation is just getting the physical space to locate some of the technologies to put it into place where we have better access to the patients from the emergency department,” AnMed’s Parrish said. In 1990, aging infrastructure and competition for resources led to the closing of Mullins Hospital and Marion County Memorial, just 11 miles apart from each other in Marion County. After a feasibility study, the board of the Marion County Health District, which ran both hospitals, decided that renovating two hospitals would dilute the opportunity for either hospital to thrive. In 1997, Marion Regional Healthcare was built in between the two former sites. The decision proved opportune, said Lloyd. “It was a strategy to reduce costs, share resources and an opportunity to recruit and retain physicians. We estimated we could save annually 5 percent of our total operating costs as opposed to operating as two separate entities, and we were able to achieve that.” Smart management key Good hospital management lies at the crux of the many hospital decisions, observers say. Smart moves by small rural hospitals to focus on physician recruitment and marketing strategies to capitalize on community resources have shown success. Bailey said some of the small for-profits have done well in South Carolina, she said, particularly those owned by the Health Management Associates, including Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center in Hartsville and Upstate Carolina Medical Center in Gaffney. “They are very good about knowing how to run those hospitals,” she said. In the end, hospital leaders say, it’s all about managing costs. For certain, how a hospital is able to do that, provide high quality care and still balance the bottom line will continue to be a key part of that equation.  << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>