A History of Care and Vision for the Future
When Beaufort County Memorial Hospital opened its doors on May 1, 1944, no one could have envisioned then the robust, independent, multispecialty, community-focused hospital and provider network it would become.
Today, however, it’s all about envisioning and planning for the current and future health care needs of an ever-expanding community of patients.
“The history of Beaufort Memorial and its responsiveness to the needs of its patients is remarkable,” says BMH President and CEO Russell Baxley. “It has been our job to not only keep pace with the rapid growth in our region and, whenever possible, anticipate the future needs of our patients and providers.”
A vision for healthcare
The idea for a community hospital was conceived more than 90 years ago by the hospital’s earliest visionary and philanthropist, Kate Gleason. It was the early 1930s and Gleason, who hailed from Rochester, New York, fell in love with the Lowcountry and recognized the need for local health care services.
Upon her death in 1933, the land along the Beaufort River where Beaufort Memorial Hospital now stands was bequeathed to the people of Beaufort County for the purpose of building a hospital and an adjacent, riverside park.
The state provided the funds to build the original structure, a one-story brick building with just 25 beds, four physicians and a mission to care for the local community.
Over the years the hospital would expand to meet the growing needs of the population, which was also surging. Major expansions would follow, the first of which was in the early 1960s and included a surgical unit and a second story to accommodate more patient beds.
Projects in the 80s and 90s focused on imaging services, the birthing center, a modern emergency room and, most notably, the five-story patient “tower” which opened in 1992.
By that time, the population of Beaufort County had more than quadrupled and Beaufort Memorial became the largest hospital between Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, serving patients from Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties.
Beyond the four walls
By the late 1990s and early 2000s the hospital’s leadership began looking outward, considering facilities beyond the hospital’s main campus to provide access to care in other parts of the community. The first of these was HealthLink on Lady’s Island, followed by Lowcountry Medical Group in Port Royal, then Bluffton Medical Services in Westbury Park, which opened in June 2006. At the same time the hospital began employing more providers to offer primary care services in bustling Bluffton. An expansion of Bluffton Medical Services in 2009 would include Bluffton Primary Care, an internal medicine and primary care practice. The multi-specialty outpatient facility also offered access to orthopedists, cardiologists, obstetricians and gynecologists, general and vascular surgeons, and outpatient services, including pediatric and adult physical, occupational and speech therapy.
“The move into the Bluffton community opened the floodgates in terms of recognizing the need for more access to care,” said Baxley, who has led some of the system’s biggest and most ambitious expansion projects since taking the helm in 2016.
Accelerating access
The last five years have seen the most dramatic increases in providers, facilities, and services to improve access, with future expansions on the horizon.
In 2019 alone the hospital launched the region’s first telemedicine service, BMH Care Anywhere; broke ground on a 70,000-square-foot medical office building in Okatie and opened the May River Medical Pavilion on Burnt Church Road in Bluffton, which included a same-day express care clinic and a new primary care practice.
“Our mission was and is to enhance the quality of life in the Lowcountry, and providing care in multiple settings and through innovative technology has been critical to fulfilling that mission,” Baxley says.
Fast forward to 2020 when, amidst an unprecedented pandemic that taxed every resource available, the hospital opened the Okatie Medical Pavilion, the single largest facility outside of the main hospital campus.
In addition to specialty provider access, including cardiology, gastroenterology, general and vascular surgery and neurology, the medical complex housed a new Express Care clinic; OBGYN, orthopedic and primary care practices; a breast health center; imaging and laboratory services; an outpatient rehabilitation suite, and a full-service cancer center in partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
As these practices grew and flourished, Baxley and his leadership team continued looking toward the future with plans to build a micro hospital in Bluffton, upgrading imaging equipment, acquiring an outpatient imaging center on Hilton Head Island, renovating the cardiac catheterization lab (cath lab), recruiting new surgical specialists, and expanding surgical services at Beaufort Memorial Hospital.
Exposing the past to create the future
Last fall the hospital hosted a ceremonial “wall-breaking” to kick-off construction of a multi-million-dollar renovation and expansion of its Surgical Pavilion in Beaufort.
The project includes the addition of two state-of-the-art surgical suites to address the growing demand for advanced procedures, as well as enlarging existing suites to accommodate the latest technologies and optimize the surgical process, and the renovation of pre- and post-operating care areas to streamline patient flow.
One of the largest on-campus projects in recent years, it is also the one most closely tied to the original, 1940s structure. As demolition began last fall to make way for the addition, construction workers uncovered a wall revealing the original exterior of the hospital with a fully intact window, foreshadowing the vision of things to come.
“It was extraordinary to see and touch a part of something that has benefited generations of people and that remains intact today,” Baxley said. “It certainly underscores the importance of continuing to support the longstanding mission and vision of Beaufort Memorial.”
Beaufort Memorial received approximately $18 million in federal funds for the project, as part of the 2022 Omnibus Bill passed to provide support for critical infrastructure projects throughout the nation, including more than $150 million in funds for Beaufort County.
As the fundraising arm of the not-for-profit hospital, the Beaufort Memorial Foundation began collaborating with donors to solicit donations for the multi-million-dollar effort shortly after planning started in 2018.
The $4.3 million raised by the Foundation, including more than $1 million in earmarked proceeds from its annual Valentine Ball, will cover most of the increase seen in construction costs since the project was submitted through the state’s certificate of need (CON) application process.
As part of the improvements the hospital installed the latest da Vinci XI Surgical System, giving surgeons improved visibility and even greater precision when performing the more than a dozen minimally invasive surgical procedures with robotic assistance.
One of only four South Carolina hospitals with advanced certification for hip and knee replacement from The Joint Commission, Beaufort Memorial also added a second cutting-edge Mako SmartRobotics™ Surgery System and its first DePuy VELYS™ Robotic-Assisted System for joint replacement. The technology allows orthopedic surgeons to create a surgical plan unique to a patient’s anatomy, and then use the robotic arm to implant the components with greater precision, leading to better function and more natural movement.
Like that original wall, the commitment to expanding and improving health care services for the community has remained strong. And as work continues to complete the expansion, rest assured that Baxley and his team are already working on future projects, continuing the 80-year tradition of caring for the community.
“I am so proud to work for an organization with a deep history of support by and for the community,” Baxley said. “And I am equally proud of the future of Beaufort Memorial and the truly innovative plans we have undertaken to ensure that our providers, employee partners, services, and facilities are well-positioned to meet the needs of our growing communities.”
