MUSC Health welcomes four community hospitals to system
March 3, 2019
Acquisition accelerates transformation and growth for health care delivery, research, education
The Medical University of South Carolina Hospital Authority (MUSC Health) has completed the purchase of four South Carolina hospitals from subsidiaries of Community Health Systems Inc. The purchase includes:
- 82-bed Chester Regional Medical Center in Chester,
- 225-bed Springs Memorial Hospital in Lancaster,
- 396-bed Carolinas Hospital System – Florence and
- 124-bed Carolinas Hospital System – Marion in Mullins.
This acquisition also comprises two nursing centers, physician clinic operations and outpatient services. The facilities have been renamed, effective immediately:
- MUSC Health Chester Medical Center,
- MUSC Health Lancaster Medical Center,
- MUSC Health Florence Medical Center, and
- MUSC Health Marion Medical Center.
MUSC Health will finance this transaction through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development program with up to $137 million of debt and the assumption of certain leases for a total sales price of $176 million. This transaction is effective March 1.
In calendar year 2017, the four hospitals combined delivered care through more than 129,000 emergency department (ED) visits, 159,000 outpatient visits (excluding ED visits), 18,800 hospital admissions and 339,000 clinic visits with physicians. MUSC now employs more than 16,400 team members throughout the state. The CEOs of each institution will become senior leaders in the MUSC Health system which is led by Patrick Cawley, M.D., CEO of MUSC Health and vice president of Health Affairs, University. MUSC Health also recently hired Robert Harrington, M.D., to serve as chief medical officer of the affiliate network. In this role, he’ll be the liaison between medical staff on the peninsula and the other sites.
MUSC Health works diligently to fulfill its mission through prudent financial management, dedicated philanthropic support and strategic business growth. Roughly 60 percent of all MUSC Health patient care revenues are generated from statewide communities outside of the Tri-county area. The remaining 40 percent of patient care revenues are driven by services delivered within the Tri-county market (Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties).
“We are the Medical University of South Carolina. Our mission is to improve health across the state, and to do that, we need to be present in areas across the state,” said Matt Severance, MUSC Health chief of affiliations and network development. “Beyond patient care, which we believe is best provided locally, the expansion creates opportunities for additional academic rotations for all six colleges as well as new research and innovation avenues to pursue in new geographic regions and in the community hospital setting.”
About MUSC Health
MUSC Health is the clinical enterprise of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and is comprised of an 800-bed medical center, the MUSC College of Medicine and the physician’s practice plan. It serves patients across South Carolina and beyond through four hospital facilities in Charleston and more than 100 outreach sites. Among these are the Hollings Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated center in the state, and a nationally recognized Children’s Hospital. The Medical University was founded in 1824 and has become a premier academic health sciences center at the forefront of the latest advances in medicine, with world-class physicians, scientists and groundbreaking research and technology that is often the first of its kind in the world. Visit http://muschealth.org for more information.
