MUSC

The challenges that the health care industry face are big, hairy, complex issues that will take time to solve. Included are workforce shortages, diminishing resources, and increasing costs, health disparities. On top of that, healthcare is 20 years behind other industries in implementing digital solutions that make it easier for patients to access and navigate their health care purchasing decisions and care journeys.

At the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and our integrated health system, MUSC Health, we are humble enough to realize that we need innovative approaches to these challenges, and we certainly cannot solve them alone. The fact that we are South Carolina’s only comprehensive academic medical center, and serve patients across the state, many of whom live in counties classified as medical deserts – only exacerbates an already challenging environment. However, we see challenges as opportunities for innovation and collaboration.

For instance, as home to one of two nationally designated centers of telehealth excellence, we are capitalizing on our expertise and depth in telehealth. Our telestroke network ensures all South Carolinians are less than an hour away from comprehensive stroke care – a clinical area where time is quite literally life. Our school-based telehealth programs help children stay in school and manage their asthma proactively – saving parents’ time and money and keeping kids learning

Our virtual urgent care platform guarantees 24/7 access to providers for many South Carolinians including college students at Clemson, College of Charleston, and The Citadel. Telehealth is transforming access to care and reducing care disparities in the most meaningful way we have seen in health care in decades. Its impact has been amplified in our state thanks to the dozens of health systems, medical practices, and other organizations who came together to form the South Carolina Telehealth Alliance. Radical collaboration – even with competitors – has been a major driver of our success.

With the recognition that, at times, the challenges we face in health care are simply too complex to overcome without outside perspectives, MUSC has also established partnerships with industry leaders. These partnerships have allowed MUSC to leverage technological advances and become an early adopter of cutting-edge technology that allows us to solve our pain points with innovative solutions and advance the quality of health care for patients in some of the most rural and underserved areas in the state.

If We All Stay Focused On Delivering More Equitable And Accessible Care, We Will Create A Better System For Consumers Of Health Care

A great example of this is MUSC’s recent launch of Siemen’s syngo Virtual Cockpit, which will provide the ability to perform advanced MRI scans in areas of the state previously unable to offer this service because of a lack of available trained staff. A first-of-its-kind system, the syngo Virtual Cockpit is a software solution designed to assist scan procedures from a distance, eliminating the need to travel greater lengths for health care. Patients can have a scan performed at a virtual cockpit location across the state, with a technologist stationed in Charleston performing the scans from afar in real time. This saves outpatients the time and cost of traveling for an MRI exam.

Today, an industry partnership could mean the difference in an explosion of different uses of equipment in procedures and surgeries. Most recently, our industry partnership with Synaptive has brought in Modus V 3D robotic digital microscopes to MUSC Health, making our MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital the first pediatric hospital in North America to own and operate the 3D scope system. These microscopes superimpose high end nerve tracks, allowing surgeons to see on the screen exactly where functional nerve tracks are in relation to the surgical path or lesion. This kind of technology will eliminate physical limitations of traditional viewing devices and open a world of possibilities in neurosurgery

Collaboration is not easy. The marriage analogy can sometimes fall flat, but most clichés have at least a little bit of truth to them. Partnerships require time, energy, and infrastructure to work well. That means investment from organizations and a willingness to work together differently. Sometimes you even have to work with an organization that you were in a dog fight with the week before because it is what is best for patients. If we all stay focused on delivering more equitable and accessible care, we will create a better system for consumers of health care – and of course that is every single one of us