Priority: Address capacity challenges by investing in children’s healthcare infrastructure – increasing the number of pediatric inpatient beds, expanding outpatient pediatric specialty services, and updating technology to ensure the delivery of efficient and state-of-the-art care.
Background: Population growth, the loss of community hospital-based pediatric inpatient beds, and the increasing medical complexity of many children we serve have together created a need for expanded capacity. Investment is needed to ensure that all children in South Carolina can receive needed care within the state – care that is provided as close to home as possible. We will continue to work collaboratively to address the needs of children with complex or chronic illness, creating statewide systems of care and utilizing telehealth as appropriate.
Priority: Work collaboratively across the state to increase pediatric behavioral health capacity at all levels of service, additionally focusing on pediatric behavioral health workforce development.
Background:
South Carolina lacks adequate behavioral health services for children and adolescents. The children’s hospitals have become front-line behavioral health service providers with many children showing up in our emergency rooms with acute behavioral health needs. All four children’s hospitals, with grant funding provided by the state Medicaid program, are establishing behavioral health crisis stabilization centers to address the need for these services. Additionally, the children’s hospitals are working closely with the state Medicaid agency to address other pediatric behavioral health needs – inpatient services, eating disorders, autism, and other. For more information on federal-level efforts regarding youth mental health, visit Speak our Minds: Ending the Youth Mental Health Crisis
Priority: Maintain telehealth flexibilities post pandemic, particularly those flexibilities that increase access to care for children with medical or developmental complexity.
Background: The South Carolina Children’s Hospital Collaborative (SCCHC) is a collaborative partner with the South Carolina Telehealth Alliance (SCTA), a statewide collaboration of health systems, providers, state agencies, and other shared-mission support organizations that work together to improve the lives of all South Carolinians through telehealth. SCCHC co-leads a SCTA pediatric telehealth workgroup focusing on the development of quality pediatric telehealth programs. SCCHC strongly supports the SCTA position that long-term enactment of telehealth flexibilities is critical to maintain access to care even past the pandemic. For more information on the SCTA position regarding telehealth policy, click here