Hospitals Provide Prescription for Good Care
Published Dec 02, 2008
McLeod Regional Medical Center has added a new surgical tower featuring the “operating room of tomorrow.”
The Florence area’s major hospital systems have rolled out new technology and affiliations with outside providers to tackle the region’s biggest health-care needs.
McLeod Health and Carolinas Hospital System together serve the bulk of the Pee Dee Region’s patients and have upgraded their operations to provide better cardiac care and oncology services to the area.
For more than a century, McLeod Health has been serving the residents of northeastern South Carolina.
Comprised of the main hospital in Florence and a pair of smaller facilities in nearby Dillon and Darlington, McLeod Health has sought to keep its services current with the latest innovations.
McLeod has developed nationally recognized cardiac-care programs and built a new surgical tower featuring what it bills as the “operating room of tomorrow.”
McLeod has developed a heart surgical affiliation with the Cleveland Clinic, bringing expertise and new treatments from the nation’s top cardiac hospital to Pee Dee residents.
CEO Rob Colones says McLeod performed the area’s first open-heart surgery more than two decades ago and enjoys a higher-than-average survival rate today.
McLeod also has focused heavily on breast cancer, a disease that is common to the region. Three counties rank among the top six in the state for breast cancer mortality.
McLeod has acquired a digital mobile mammography unit that provides a convenient and private setting for women undergoing a mammogram.
Images are sent back via satellite to McLeod, where caregivers send a result letter within 10 days. That program was the first of its kind in the state.
Carolinas Hospital was formed following the merger of Bruce and Florence General hospitals, which resulted in a new facility that was built in 1998.
CEO Jim O’Loughlin says the hospital’s all-private rooms and modern design that allows natural light to enter create a healing environment.
Carolinas Hospital System has developed expertise in cardiac surgery, cardiology and cancer treatment.
For cardiac care, the hospital has recruited top surgeons and invested heavily in technology. Among those investments is the state’s first da Vinci system used for minimally invasive surgeries.
The hospital also developed its cardiovascular critical-care operations with a catheterization lab and rehabilitation.
Carolinas also operates clinics in rural locales and added a south tower at its Florence complex that included beds for nephrology and oncology. The provider also developed an ambulatory surgery center campus that allows patients to receive surgeries on an outpatient basis.
Noting a prevalence of heart disease, diabetes and hypertension, O’Loughlin has pushed the hospital to work in health promotion with screenings and prevention-related activities.
Part of a national hospital company, Carolinas can leverage the collective size of its parent company to add capabilities and reach out to the community. The hospital has a picture-archiving system for transmitting images and is converting to electronic medical records.
“Doctors we recruit in are often surprised when they get to the hospital,” O’Loughlin says. “The technology that we’ve invested in you’d find in the bigger cities.”
Story by Roy Moore
Photo by Todd Bennett
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