Big grant to propel medical research

The Duke Endowment announced Tuesday that it would award its largest health care grant in history -- $21 million over three years -- to bolster research projects at six of South Carolina's medical research hubs, including Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System.

Spartanburg Regional President and CEO Ingo Angermeier said the grant was a sign of confidence in South Carolina's efforts to improve health care. In Spartanburg, he added, the endowment would translate to better research and grant proposals.

Across the board, however, the endowment would fund the development of a number of projects to enhance patient safety, clinical effectiveness, education and data sharing, said Judy Cotchett Smith, executive director of Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC), the six-member consortium that received the grant.

"They're projects that are being developed across the system, across all six and among all six," Smith added. "None of them happen at just one place."

Some of the $21 million, she added, would be eligible for matching funds from the state.

Greenville Hospital System, the Medical University of South Carolina, Palmetto Health and the University of South Carolina established HSSC in 2004 to boost the state's economy through public-private investment in medical research. Spartanburg Regional and Clemson University joined the collaborative in 2005.

Angermeier said the endowment would not fund specific medical research but would be used to put in

place a general infrastructure and full-time executive staff to offer grant-writing support for HSSC. Committees, staffed with volunteers from the three universities and three hospitals, have handled that work so far, he added.

"Now we'll be able to augment those full-time volunteers with a full-time staff," he said. "A whole lot more work will be done."

Smith and Duke Endowment President Gene Cochrane also said the grant money would create an interface and infrastructure among HSSC's partners. Smith and Cochrane, however, said the money would be used to fund and develop specific projects. Moreover, they said, it was not meant for hiring a full-time HSSC staff.

"There will be funds from the grant that will flow toward the support of the operations of the president's office," Smith said. "Now we don't even have a president, yet."

One of the HSSC projects, Cochrane said, is a simulation laboratory in Greenville that allows participants and students to use computer sensors to work on mannequins as if they were live patients. Similar laboratories soon will be developed in Charleston and Columbia, Smith said, and the endowment will go toward funding a data-sharing and communication network among those three cities.

"The idea is by cooperation and by communication they can help one another come up with the best practices and can assist all the various players," said Spartanburg Mayor Bill Barnet, a member of the Duke Endowment's board of trustees.

The simulation laboratory is part of the HSSC's Center for Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety, a project that will be one of the first two direct recipients of the Duke Endowment funds, Smith said. If approved, the Center for Healthcare Quality also will see some of those first funds. HSSC supports four other research projects, but Spartanburg Regional currently does not have one under way, Smith said.

Emily Dagostino can be reached at 562-7221 or emily.dagostino@shj.com.