Health Sciences South Carolina adopts new strategic plan
May 23, 2012
Statewide collaborative will strengthen IT and research support tohelp state’s hospitals and research institutions improve patient care
COLUMBIA, SC – May 22, 2012 – Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC) hasupdated its blueprint for transforming health care and health researchin South Carolina.
HSSC—a collaborative that includes six of South Carolina’s largesthospital systems and its three largest research-intensiveuniversities—announced today that it has established a new strategicplan. The plan fine-tunes the organization’s purposes and goals whilecontinuing the many activities that HSSC has launched during itseight-year existence to improve patient care and population health. Thisnew strategic plan will help steer the organization during the nextfive years and beyond.
HSSC’s members are Clemson University, the Medical University of SouthCarolina, the University of South Carolina, Greenville Hospital System,Palmetto Health, Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, AnMed Health,McLeod Health, and Self Regional Healthcare. HSSC is the only statewidebiomedical research collaborative in the nation.
Since its beginning in 2004, HSSC has developed the concepts,infrastructure, and technology that are helping its member organizationsraise the level of health care research, education, and delivery inSouth Carolina. HSSC also helps its members collaborate more effectivelyon research projects and health initiatives.
“We will not be stagnant at HSSC—we want to be sure that our prioritiesare those activities that are most relevant to our members’ currentneeds as they relate to advancing health research and care delivery,”says HSSC President and CEO Jay Moskowitz. “This strategic plan willhelp ensure that our efforts have a direct impact on patients in thereal world by helping our members move more quickly and more efficientlyto improve care.”
With its new strategic plan, HSSC will prioritize several of itsexisting efforts that help support its members’ research and clinicalactivities.
Some of these priorities revolve around the use of health informationtechnology, such as aggregating clinical data and developinginformation management tools to make research more efficient. Thesepriorities tie into the statewide health IT infrastructure that HSSC hasbeen developing over the last several years to support research andimprove patient care. The centerpiece of this IT infrastructure is aclinical data warehouse that collects data (such as records of patientdiagnoses and treatments) from its member institutions.
Through this warehouse, HSSC can provide rapid access to theaggregated data (with all patient identifiers removed) to healthresearchers and providers; such a large quantity of data could helpresearchers make new discoveries and allow providers to make better andfaster decisions related to the care of their patients.
Other priorities called for in the strategic plan include connectingmultiple institutions for the purpose of collaborative researchprojects, providing support for members’ grant-seeking activities, andhelping members reduce costs so that resources can be used for careimprovement.
“Developing this strategic plan has really re-energized our organization,” said Moskowitz. We’re very excited to move forward.”
Developing the new strategic plan was a several month process. It beganin September 2011 and has involved the HSSC board, senior leadership,member organizations, and related statewide health organizations.
To view HSSC’s new strategic plan, click here http://www.healthsciencessc.org/upload/index_9_1830648586.pdf or visit www.healthsciencessc.org.
