Hospitals and health systems in South Carolina comprise a powerful economic engine that’s generating prosperity and job growth as well as health and wellness. A new report shows the state’s hospitals deliver a whopping $36.75 billion in total economic impact. That makes potential cuts to Medicaid reimbursement risky.

There were challenges before the achievement as a freestanding emergency department prepared to open for service in Piedmont, South Carolina. It’s the first operational wing on a health care campus that will ultimately include physical therapy and providers in primary care and more than 10 specialties. Community investment and collaboration made it happen.

Advancements and new developments in technology and techniques lead directly and almost instantly to benefits in patient health.

That’s starkly apparent in the battle against lung cancer, one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

South Carolina’s rate of new lung cancer cases is significantly higher than the national average.

But there is hope, and that is growing, thanks to new innovations.

Two resident physicians and AnMed’s director of nursing got their start in the health system as young volunteers. They gave time, energy and attention without expectation of compensation, but they did receive something valuable, and its effects linger to this day.

Genetics play a vital role in the fate of our health, but no one’s health care should be solely determined by the social or economic circumstances in which they were born. That’s why we’re acting. And we’re proud that our efforts have won national praise.

Adoptions within the U.S. and internationally have declined in recent years, but that doesn’t mean the need for adoptions is declining. The act of a couple or a person raising someone else’s biological child as their own is a beautiful thing. It takes sacrifice, but it reaps wonderful rewards, and AnMed teammates have firsthand experience on both sides of the family dynamic.

Inflation isn’t the only thing that’s impacting patients’ financial dealings in health care. Trends are troubling. But work is being done to ease that burden. Samantha Evans, director of business services at AnMed, and a group of local high school students led by Grace Wang, Kaylee Jacobson and Maleeha Khan-Niazi are among those who are stepping up. For more information on the students’ efforts, visit healthfirstalways.org.

Something didn’t seem quite right when Paige Fuhrer and Lori White studied one particular blood culture recently. So they went beyond the norm and helped make a rare find for a young, autistic, non-verbal girl. And that made all the difference.