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Roper St. Francis, East Cooper Medical await DHEC
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Now there is nothing left but the wait. Representatives of Roper St. Francis Healthcare and the East Cooper Regional Medical Center made their presentations defending the need for their proposed new Mount Pleasant hospitals Jan. 18 in Columbia before the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
DHEC’s Bureau of Health Facilities and Services Development will decide the fate of the proposals by late March, according to Joel Grice, the bureau’s director.
The ruling will go either one of three ways. Both proposals could be rejected, both accepted or one approved over the other. If approved, either hospital can open within three years.
“Each presentation was done well,” Grice said. He added that during the two-hour event, each side raised issues concerning the feasibility of the other’s proposed hospital, issues requiring the presenters to submit more information to the state to answer those concerns.
Roper officials questioned whether East Cooper’s parent company, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., is financially capable of building its proposed $157 million hospital. In January, Tenet announced it would pay $215 million in cash to settle federal securities class-action suits.
East Cooper officials, on the other hand, argued that the need is not strong enough for Roper to build a hospital.
Because the proposed hospitals would be built eight miles apart, state regulators must determine the impact the hospitals might have on each other.
Roper’s proposed $123 million, 85-bed hospital—the organization’s first hospital in the East Cooper area—would be built in northern Mount Pleasant near Wando High School and Highway 41. Most of Mount Pleasant’s growth is projected to be in this area.
In its presentation, Roper’s representatives argued that their hospital is needed because the East Cooper area, which includes seven ZIP codes, is underserved, with 100 hospital beds for a population of more than 98,450; that the hospital is needed to accommodate the area’s projected 20% population growth by 2009; and that the hospital will provide area residents with a not-for-profit community-based alternative for hospital care.
The presentation included endorsements from Mount Pleasant Mayor Harry Hallman, Awendaw Mayor William Alston, Dr. Brian Cuddy of Charleston Neurological Associates LLC, East Cooper physician Dr. Strait Fairey of Lowcountry Medical Associates and state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.
East Cooper wants to replace its existing 100-bed facility with a new 140-bed hospital at the same location on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard near Interstate 526.
Both health care organizations must be granted a certificate of need from the state before the proposed hospitals can be built.
The certificate’s intention is to contain costs, prevent unnecessary duplication of health care facilities and services, and guide the establishment of health care facilities and services so that they best suit the public.
The certificate of need program begins with the 14-member State Health Planning Committee’s state health plan, which is written at least every two years and outlines the need for medical facilities and services in the state.
The state health plan projects the need for various services and facilities, including hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgery, rehabilitation, psychiatric care and home health.
The State Health Planning Committee looks at a hospital’s current use, projected need and population estimates for seven years into the future. Based on that data, they come up with a plan for each facility, a plan that determines a facility’s ability to expand.
Dennis Quick covers health care for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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