Posted on Tue, Aug. 15, 2006

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$21 million Duke grant to improve S.C. health care

Three-year gift underscores S.C.’s dedication to health sciences for economic growth

By JAMES T. HAMMOND

jhammond@thestate.com

The Duke Endowment today will announce a three-year grant to Health Sciences South Carolina worth $21 million — the largest single grant ever made by the $2.7 billion philanthropy’s health care division.

The money eventually will mean better health care for South Carolina patients, and its impact will be magnified because some of the Duke funds will be used to draw a dollar-for-dollar match in state money.

The grant will help fund projects that advance HSSC’s goal of improving the safety, quality and effectiveness of care delivered in South Carolina’s hospitals through research and training.

The grant also is viewed as an affirmation of the state’s decision to concentrate on the health sciences for economic growth.

Collectively, the six partners in HSSC — the state’s three research universities and hospital systems in Greenville, Spartanburg and Richland counties — employ 47,000. That figure is expected to grow — along with the collaboration.

Judy Cotchett Smith, executive director of Health Sciences South Carolina, said the application to the Duke Endowment called for creation of a system that would allow the six HSSC partners to share information as they carry out several research partnerships aimed at improving the delivery of health care.

Some of the funds will help support the Center for Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety, with clinics in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.

The new research and training facilities will:

• Educate physicians and other clinicians about best practices in medicine

• Apply information and technology to medical training

• Develop and use mannequins or other simulators rather than an actual patient for training

Health Sciences South Carolina was created in April 2004 by the Greenville Hospital System, Medical University of South Carolina, Palmetto Health and the University of South Carolina. The public-private research partnership has since expanded to include Clemson University and Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System.

The Duke Endowment grant is what the HSSC founders hoped for when they decided to link the South Carolina institutions into a single research entity with a client base and revenue big enough to support major clinical studies.

South Carolina is a small, poor state in which individual institutions have not been able to compete with large urban medical centers for public and private research grants.

Health sciences have emerged in recent years as an engine of economic growth. USC’s Moore School of Business estimated the statewide economic impact of HSSC was $8.5 billion in 2004, including one out of every 38 jobs in the state and 3.3 percent of South Carolina’s total salaries.

HSSC was created in response to the South Carolina Life Science Act and Venture Capital Investment Act, both enacted into law in 2004. The legislation created incentives and funding for life science companies and state research universities, including:

• Incentives for life science companies with investment of $100 million or more, creating at least 200 jobs and paying 1.5 times the state per capita income

• Allowing for negotiation of corporate income taxes

• Creation of possible tax savings from equipment depreciation at an accelerated rate

• Granting research universities of South Carolina up to $220 million. (The state funds must be matched with other funds, creating a potential $440 million impact.)

• Enabling the state to create a public fund that invests in private venture capital funds through state tax credits

Officials of the Charlotte-based Duke Endowment plan to attend today’s announcement of the grant at the State House.

Reach Hammond at (803) 771-8474.