MUSC's Statewide Role: Partnership & Presence

Our mission is to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research, and patient care. To fulfill this mission, MUSC must have connectivity through partnership and, where appropriate, physical presence and telehealth availability across the state.
Our vision is to lead health innovation for the lives we touch, which includes all South Carolinians.

Addressing the growing rural health care access and care delivery disparities in South Carolina

Rural hospitals in South Carolina are under significant financial pressure with some facing closure, worsening the challenge of health care access/disparities.
MUSC is investing and innovating in numerous smaller and rural South Carolina hospitals through partnership or presence, providing underrepresented minority and rural populations better access to the highest level of patient care.

The health system has the broadest range of specialties in South Carolina with more than 15 only offered at MUSC. Because of the focus on specialized care, MUSC sees patients from every county in South Carolina and every state in the nation.
MUSC provides more than 50 percent of the state’s graduate medical education (GME), making the institution the largest GME provider in South Carolina with a total of 818 positions across 77 specialties. Approximately 75 percent of physicians who complete medical school / GME in South Carolina remain in the state to practice.
MUSC is the only health care system in the state that has a $328M translational and basic science research enterprise capable of defining state of the art care.
Statewide and regional complex care referrals account for approximately 55 percent of the patients seen at MUSC Health Charleston division.
MUSC’s major competitors are regional academic health centers (e.g., Duke, UNC, Emory, Wake Forest, and Atrium).

MUSC is working with partners to increase size, scale, and system-ness to succeed in emerging new payment models.
We are collaborating with others in South Carolina to deliver on our core strengths, we are strengthening clinical and research capabilities, enhance access to care, diversify revenues, bolster reputation, and accelerate innovation.
As a university, we are continuing to form partnerships, collaborations, and relationships with affiliates throughout the state to enable excellent education, training, research, and clinical trial opportunities.

Our citizen's current and future needs for the highest levels of specialized, complex care should be close to home in South Carolina.
South Carolina citizens living in rural or underserved areas need optimal care delivery and appropriate access to highly specialized care which is provided directly by MUSC Health and its partners.
MUSC wants to sustain its long-term financial viability and meet the objectives of its tripartite mission.
In its role as the state’s only comprehensive academic medical center, MUSC actively works to enable the best local care, and thus the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Health care is an ever-evolving innovation process whereby over time more complex care can be safely delivered closer to home. This is done through telehealth, physician to physician collaboration, and training of staff in the local area.
MUSC has developed productive and mutually beneficial health care system partners or clinical affiliates in all 46 counties in SC.
Providers, hospitals and health systems across the state are looking for partnership with MUSC to deliver the highest quality, comprehensive care closest to their patients’ homes.
Partnering to increase the clinical and outcomes research capabilities elevates the level of care available and the quality of care provided in the local communities.
This paradigm benefits patients, but importantly, also the local SC health care systems/providers by ensuring viability of the local hospitals.
Partnership and connectivity across the state allow MUSC to elevate the level and quality of health care providers who are trained, recruited and therefore stay in South Carolina.
Approximately 11 percent of South Carolinians requiring hospitalizations (57,938 people) leave South Carolina for care. By partnering locally, we accomplish what is most appropriate, which is providing health care in South Carolina for South Carolinians.