Hospital Support

Objective

Every community hospital in our state will have access to telehealth partnerships that enhance its services and its finances.

These hospital services represent partnerships that extend care between hospitals using telehealth with a focus of connecting resources from larger urban hospitals to community hospitals throughout the state.

Example Services

• Neurosciences
• Tele-ICU
• Inpatient Specialty Tele-Consultations including:
  • Infectious Disease
  • Psychiatry
  • Palliative Care
  • Hospitalist
  • Cardiology
  • Pulmonology

Description

Hospital Support houses many programs that launched South Carolina’s telehealth journey. The purpose of this strategy domain is to ensure community hospitals remain successful in delivering the highest level of care possible, regardless of their location. Many services that fall under this domain offer specialty provider access, via telehealth, to community hospitals that are lacking in that particular specialty area.

Callouts

• The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) provided over 10,000 inpatient consultations during 2021, supporting 39 South Carolina hospitals across 14 hospital based services. 
  
  
• In 2021, Prisma Health and McLeod Health partnered to launch a pediatric subspecialty program at McLeod facilities, increasing access for McLeod patients to Prisma pediatric subspecialists such as nephrology, hematology, pulmonology, and neurology. 
  
  
• SC Department of Mental Health (SCDMH) continued to provide accessible mental health care through its Emergency Department telepsychiatry program, providing approximately 9,300 telehealth services per month in 2021, over an 18% increase from the year before.
  
  
• 64 SCTA Supported Hospitals