Scotland County Hospital (SCH)
April (2012)

Spring Has Sprung & SCH is Still Growing!

Scotland County Hospital and Memphis Medical Services (MMS) continues the expansion and renovation projects at a timely pace.

According to the contractor and Hospital officials, the project is ahead of schedule, at this point, and is over 75% completed.

The newly constructed building additions are all open & operational.

The Admissions/Registration Area, Emergency Department, Inpatient Rooms and Medical/Surgical Unit opened in December 2011, while The Surgery Center welcomed its first patients in January 2012.

Furthermore, these newly built areas have higher census numbers compared to the same period the year prior.

The Emergency Department has had a 13.28% increase in usage, the census in the new Medical/Surgical Inpatient Unit is up 2.15% for acute care patients, while The Surgery Center has seen an 8.43% increase in surgeries and a 12.5% increase in special procedures.

The Hospital's newly constructed Library/Conference Center & clinic expansion has been in use for nearly a month.

This new building is located to the east of Memphis Medical Services and houses clinic patient rooms, clinic nurses station, physician offices & meeting rooms.

The large meeting rooms offer many audio visual technologies to its users, while medical literature and publications are being procured for the Library, in the future.

The Library/Conference Center is an asset to the community and is open for public use by scheduling the meetings rooms through the Administration office.

Currently, the parking lot at Memphis Medical Services is under construction while concrete is being poured. This parking lot is scheduled to be open by May 1st.

MMS patients are asked to access the clinic through the Hospital's South Canopy Entrance until further notice.

Patients and clients of the Hospital's Women's Center, Annex and SC Health Department can access these facilities from the Hospital's North Parking Lot (off Sigler Avenue).

Internally, the former surgery suite is being remodeled to house the radiology department.

The newly remodeled radiology department will offer their current services while upgrading the CT Scanner (cat scan) from a 32-slice unit to a 64-slice machine.

This upgraded machine offers the patient faster testing and more detailed imagery.

The final four inpatient rooms in the medical/surgical unit will be completed and in use April 30th. This will make a total of 11 new inpatient rooms and 4 remodeled inpatient rooms in the Medical/Surgical Unit.

Two of the new inpatient rooms are equipped for the bariatric patient. These two larger rooms can also be utilized for end of life patient care and allow family members the comforts of a connected 'family room' that offers a refrigerator, microwave, toaster and coffee service.

The Hospital's expansion and renovation projects are part of President Obama's American Recovery & Reinvestment Act with low interest loans and grants from the United States Department of Agriculture.