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What you need to know about MUSC Health as it eyes Columbia hospital expansion

The second-largest health system in South Carolina could be getting even bigger.

An influential state lawmaker on Thursday confirmed the Medical University of South Carolina plans to buy a pair of hospitals in the Midlands. And it could be happening as early as Friday morning, when the MUSC board of trustees plans to meet in Columbia for a special-called meeting.

If the board votes to buy Columbia-based Providence Hospital and Kershaw Health Medical Center in Camden, House budget chief Murrell Smith, R-Sumter said the Legislature’s State Fiscal and Accountability Authority will greenlight the plans Tuesday.

While MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine declined to confirm or comment on the potential purchase, she did say the health provider is seeking to expand.

With a pair of hospital purchases on the horizon, here are five things to know about the health care system with deep roots in Charleston.

More than a hospital

MUSC is not just a health care system, it is an historic piece of Southern history.

Founded in 1824 as a small private college to train physicians, MUSC became the first medical school in the South. Today, it is one of the oldest continually operating schools of medicine in the United States.

Since its founding in Charleston, it has awarded nearly 39,000 degrees. The medical school includes a teaching hospital along with six colleges that, combined, have more than 1,800 faculty members who educate and train around 3,000 students and 800 residents each year.

Not the first expansion

The purchase of Providence Health is just the latest in MUSC’s push to expand its influence outside of the Lowcountry.

In 2019, the public, nonprofit health system bought four community hospitals in Lancaster, Florence, Marion and Chester. The move created a regional hospital network that now reaches well beyond its home base in Charleston.

With those purchases, it doubled the number of patient beds MUSC Health had in its network.

An October 2020 economic impact study by Joseph Von Nessen, a research economist at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, found that about 38,000 peole in South Carolina can attribute their jobs either directly or indirectly to the activities going on at MUSC every day.

And when MUSC employs more people, he said, there is a multiplier effect.

“For every 10 jobs that are created or supported by MUSC, we see an additional 11 jobs created elsewhere in South Carolina for a total of 21,” Von Nessen said.

After the 2019 expansion into Lancaster, Florence, Marion and Chester, the report found MUSC had a $4.5 billion economic impact in Charleston, a $536.2 million impact in the Florence area and $267.8 million impact in the Lancaster region.

The acquisitions have also come as MUSC expands its footprint in the Lowcountry, too. In 2020 it opened the Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital and Pearl Tourville Women’s Pavilion, a state-of-the-art facility that integrates pediatric care with obstetrical services.

With the opening of its Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital, MUSC Children’s Health now offers 250 licensed beds. More than 80 of these are found in the neonatal intensive care unit, which is the largest in the state.

One of Charleston’s largest employers

MUSC Health claims it is the largest non-federal employer in the Charleston metro area, with its employment numbers second only to aerospace giant Boeing. Woolwine, a spokeswoman for MUSC, said the entire health system consists of approximately 17,000 team members.

The report from Von Nessen found the average annual wage for MUSC employees is about $71,000, compared to a statewide average of $43,210 – or about 50% higher.

Level I trauma center

When then-congressional candidate Katie Arrington found herself fighting for her life after a head-on collision in June 2018, emergency responders rushed her to MUSC for care.

As the Lowcountry’s only dedicated Level I trauma center, is the only facility that can provide the highest level of care, day or night.

“If I was two to three miles down the road, I might not have lived, because I would have gone to a different hospital before I’d have been medevacked to MUSC,” Arrington said at a July 2018 press conference weeks after the near-death crash.

It is also home to the state’s only transplant center.

The health system owns a storm truck

In Charleston, when it rains, it floods And MUSC is not immune.

With its campus located across 50 acres in downtown Charleston, it is common to see staff kayaking between medical buildings when downpours turn into floodwaters.

In 2018, MUSC purchased a tactical vehicle that can plow through four feet of water to ferry doctors, nurses and other essential employees between buildings.