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Making a Difference with a Smile

For years, access to dental care was one of the biggest issues facing the uninsured population in Richland and Lexington County. Patients suffering dental pain would show up in emergency rooms seeking relief, either because they didn’t know where to get cared for or, more often, because they had no

Transforming the Care Transition Process

Over the last five years, the South Carolina Hospital Association has been working with healthcare systems and communities across the state to improve the transition from hospital to home for our patients and families. As South Carolina hospitals strive to become highly reliable, this initiative focuses on creating safe, high-quality

Stronger Together

In many ways, Roper St. Francis and MUSC have all the makings of a classic rivalry. Both are large healthcare systems that offer a wide variety of services to Charleston residents on the peninsula and the surrounding areas, making them competitors in the exact same market. Plus, they are located

Presenting Lessons Learned

Dr. Michael Cheatham, MD, Chief Surgical Quality Officer at Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC), had more than 20 years of surgical experience before the fateful morning of June 12, 2016, when victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting began pouring into his hospital and challenged the careful preparation and plans the

SCHA Statement on Senate Plan to Repeal and Replace ACA

Columbia, SC – In response to the release of the U.S. Senate’s proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the South Carolina Hospital Association has released the following statement: “The proposal presented by the U.S. Senate to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act will lead to an increase

Governor McMaster Signs Enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact Legislation

South Carolina became the 20th state to join the Enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact as Governor Henry McMaster signed the SCHA-supported legislation into law on May 11, 2017. This legislation is a major component of SCHA’s strategic initiative to strengthen South Carolina’s healthcare workforce by easing nurse licensing between states to

Finding Justice in the Workplace

Tom Crawford, PhD, MBA, FACHE, says he spent a lifetime learning from making mistakes.“I worked in very rural environments and in those environments, like a lot of leaders, we weren't necessarily proactively measuring the quality of our decision-making, we were more focused on addressing the outcomes,” recalls the former President

Healthier Workplaces Can Save Lives

When Rep. Harold Mitchell took the floor of the South Carolina legislature for what could be the last time earlier this week, there was a certain poignancy to his message.Mitchell, who is retiring after serving 12 years in the SC House of Representatives, was not there to deliver a broad

Mentoring the Next Generation

It’s one of the key aspects of all healthcare education, but one that often goes unnoticed—the preceptorship. Built on short-term relationships between a student and an experienced staff person during a rotation, this is where a student transitions from amassing the knowledge and skills needed to practice to actually performing

Save the Date: May 5th is World Hand Hygiene Day

The numbers can be disheartening. Studies show some healthcare providers practice hand hygiene less than half of the times they should and, on any given day, about 1 in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection (HAI). Many germs that cause these infections are spread from patient to

Looking Out for Stroke

They were just headaches.That’s what James Akers, 35, thought to himself for more than two weeks this past winter. A young, healthy man who frequently did 5k and 10K bike races and had two dogs at home keeping him active, Akers had never been that concerned with his health. He

South Carolina Healthcare Decisions Week Runs April 17-21

Imagine that while on the way to work last week, your spouse was involved in a multi-car collision and now lies in the hospital unresponsive, on total life support, and you’ve been told by the physicians that you may soon have to make a decision about continuing life support. What

SC Hospitals Reduce Post-Surgical Mortality

Boston, MA – South Carolina saw a 22 percent reduction in post-surgical deaths in hospitals that completed a voluntary, statewide program to implement the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist.The findings of the five-year project between the South Carolina Hospital Association, Ariadne Labs, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public

2017 Lewis Blackman Award Winners

The awards are named in honor of Lewis Wardlaw Blackman, a bright, gifted 15-year-old who died following an elective surgical procedure in 2000 due to complications related to a medical error. Helen Haskell, Lewis’s mother, has provided inspiration for the awards through her tireless and meaningful work to promote patient

Former SCDHHS Director Christian Soura to Join SCHA

The South Carolina Hospital Association (SCHA) is pleased to announce the addition of Christian Soura to the organization as Vice President of Policy and Finance.“Once we learned Christian was stepping down from SCDHHS, we knew he could bring significant value to our hospitals and health systems and we wanted to