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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - A first-of-its-kind pediatric partnership in South Carolina will see the opening of a children’s unit at a West Ashley hospital. MUSC Children’s Health and Roper St. Francis Healthcare plan to partner to open the unit at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital, providing care that is closer to home for children and families in that area. “We’ve been looking for ways to expand the capabilities of MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital, with partners in the community,” MUSC Children’s Hospital Chief of Women’s and Children’s Mark Scheurer said. The 10,000-square-foot Children’s Unit will have 16 beds. “We’ll be working together closely with Roper to understand where is the best place for a given child if they show up in an emergency room, what have you, whether it’s here at Shawn Jenkins or our combined collaborative unit in West Ashley,” Scheurer said. The Children’s Unit will feature emergency, medical-surgical and inpatient services, laboratory, imaging, a pediatric clinical pharmacist, a child-life specialist and a playroom. “About two years ago, an evaluation of our community that we serve, noted we were transferring over 600 of our youngest patients a year from our emergency department to Sean Jenkins, and as Sean Jenkins gets more full in capacity becomes an issue. It really brought to mind, ‘Is there an opportunity for us to partner to keep these children at the site that they present to?” Roper St. Francis Chief Clinical Officer Healthcare Megan Baker said. The partnership will allow healthcare providers to treat less severe pediatric conditions: Asthma flare-ups. Mild pneumonia. Croup (barking cough). Bronchiolitis in babies over 3 months. Jaundice in newborns. Stomach illnesses with dehydration. Skin infections. Fever-related seizures. Fevers without clear causes. Kidney or bladder infections. Mild pancreatitis (inflammation). Ear, nose and throat surgeries. “Both meet the needs of the patients where they are when they don’t need to be transferred, but also to accelerate and to remove any safety barriers when they do require transfer,” Baker said. The goal is to serve the growing community and free up space at Shawn Jenkins for the most critical cases. “Over the past decade, with all the new movers that have come and the burgeoning families that were seeing, and, frankly, all the additional transfers in that Shawn Jenkins is seeing for much higher tertiary levels of care. They are also seeing high levels of census, so this serves not only our growing community, but also helps unburden some of those beds for the sickest patients in our state.” Baker said. Scheurer added that the partnership will allow families to get the best, quickest and closest to home care. The unit is scheduled to open in the new year.
