Two hospitals in Horry County are preparing to build emergency rooms in Carolina Forest. This comes after more than a year of legal battles over whether the state would allow the hospitals to build ERs.
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control issued Grand Strand Medical Center a certificate of need for a new ER in Carolina Forest on Thursday. This allows the hospital to proceed with planning construction.
“Physicians on site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The nursing team, the radiology team, the lab team – everybody that is there to take care of really any patient that walks through the door,” said Grand Strand Medical Center CEO Mark Sims.
According to DHEC spokesperson Tommy Crosby, McLeod Loris Seacoast was also issued a certificate of need to build an emergency care facility this week. However, hospital officials say they are waiting on the official documentation.
Sims said Grand Strand Medical decided to build the new ER in the Forest Square shopping center off Carolina Forest Boulevard and Hwy 501 because of its central location.
“We looked at the demographics and the traffic flow and all the things you need to consider. The fact that you can get to our location from both sides of Carolina Forest Boulevard, it’s critical,” he said.
According to Sims, Grand Strand Medical received a little over 100,000 visits to the ER at its three locations in Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and on the South Strand. He said about 10% of those patients are Carolina Forest residents.
“We receive about 10,000 ER visits from Carolina Forest, and those visits either come to our main campus on 82nd Parkway or our South Strand campus,” Sims said.
He expects the new 10-bed emergency facility to open sometime in the next 10 to 12 months. With the amount of growth in the Forest, Sims estimates the facility will see about 15,000 visits in the first year
“When we look at Carolina Forest, we know that the population growth is expected to grow about 10% between now and 2020,” he said.
According to Crosby, next, each facility will need to submit a form providing construction project information to DHEC before going through the project plan review process. If DHEC issues acceptance of the final construction documents, construction can proceed, with DHEC conducting construction progress inspections until completion of construction.