Roper St. Francis Healthcare, the largest healthcare system in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, spans three counties and over a hundred facilities, forming a legacy that extends back over a century and a half. At the end of 2022, E4H began working with market strategy consultant Capital Healthcare Planning (CHP) and Roper St. Francis Healthcare to create a systemwide master plan for ushering those facilities into a new era. The team’s three-pronged approach of data analysis, facility assessment, and stakeholder engagement has yielded a set of design priorities that are guiding a value-based expansion of the system’s network of care, including the construction of a new flagship campus in North Charleston.
A rigorous dataset was foundational to the systemwide master plan. Rather than building for the sake of building, meticulous data-driven analysis of the region’s healthcare resources and pain points revealed the community’s needs. Alongside CHP, E4H set out to understand trends in demographics, growth, and competition for all Roper St. Francis Healthcare facilities. Extensive research into the region and its people—including service areas, service lines, and admission and discharge rates—provided insight into the community and Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s facilities, allowing the team to make projections about what additions and improvements would help the client remain leaders in caregiving over the coming decade.
The data was complemented by systemwide facility assessments and stakeholder engagement. E4H interviewed department managers, evaluated existing plans and documents, established bed maps, analyzed material and patient flow, and ran departmental benchmarks against FGI requirements and national standards. Civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers also evaluated the existing facilities across the healthcare system. These efforts provided insight into what infrastructure would require replacements and upgrades moving forward.
What resulted was a set of priorities that served as a basis for which projects to undertake. In addition to the relocation of Roper Hospital Medical Center from downtown to a newly designed location in North Charleston, plans solidified for new and improved projects systemwide. Mount Pleasant Hospital is embarking on emergency department additions and renovations, as well as other amenities, like a new surgical suite. Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital is receiving a number of improvements to its women’s services, including a new NICU, a 22-bed mother-baby unit, and a new labor, delivery, and recovery unit.
And across the Roper St. Francis Healthcare system, E4H will implement five new ambulatory facilities. Ultimately, the systemwide master plan is serving as a roadmap to guide Roper St. Francis Healthcare further in their mission to heal all people with compassion, faith, and excellence—now and into the future.
