MUSC Health Offering Clinical Care in the Home

August 7, 2017

CHARLESTON, SC – MUSC Health will soon have the capability to provide clinical care to patients within their own homes throughout the Lowcountry and beyond.

Teaming with BAYADA Home Care, MUSC Health currently provides home health services to patients in Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties. Eventually, home health services will be available to patients in the counties of Beaufort, Colleton, Georgetown, Horry, and Orangeburg.

For homebound patients who need assistance and families juggling the daily demands of caring for someone who is sick or injured, this is especially welcome news, said MUSC’s Katie Deerin, affiliations coordinator for senior living and non-acute care.

“The MUSC brand carries great respect in the community with both patients and providers,” she said. “For MUSC Health patients to be able to stay with whom they trust for their health care, to stay in the MUSC family and in their own homes, where they feel the safest – that is a huge win. We are now able to bring the quality services we’re known for right to our patients’ homes throughout the entire Tri-county.”

In late 2016, MUSC entered into a joint agreement with not-for-profit BAYADA Home Care to create MUSC Health at Home by BAYADA. With 42 years of experience, BAYADA has 325 offices in 22 states and locations in Germany, India, Ireland, and South Korea. BAYADA’s experience provided MUSC with the operational expertise it needed to bring its signature care to patients in the community most efficiently.

MUSC Health CEO Patrick Cawley, M.D., said this joint venture comes as part of a growing trend in which hospitals are partnering with home care agencies to deliver seamless and coordinated home-based care. This new partnership, he added, will enable MUSC providers to take MUSC Health’s longstanding delivery of high-quality health care services and extend it into its patients’ most-preferred environment – their own homes.

He also stated that MUSC Health at Home will initially offer adult home health services and, once fully operational, services for pediatric patients will be added.

Millions of Americans provide care to their aging parents and sick children, and that stress can be tremendous for all involved. In many cases, what’s really needed is skilled health care provided by registered nurses and aides, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and social workers. This type of follow-up care is often prescribed as part of the continuum of care following a hospitalization for illness or injury to help the patient transition back to independent living.

For more information, visit MUSC Health or call 843-576-5378 for information or to refer a patient.

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the state's only comprehensive academic health system, with a unique mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates more than 3,200 students in six colleges – Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy – and trains more than 900 residents and fellows in its health system. MUSC brought in more than $300 million in research funds in fiscal year 2023, leading the state overall in research funding. MUSC also leads the state in federal and National Institutes of Health funding. Learn more about our academic programs.

As the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding health care providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Patient care is provided at 16 hospitals (includes owned or governing interest), with approximately 2,700 beds and four additional hospital locations in development, more than 350 telehealth sites and nearly 750 care locations situated in all regions of South Carolina. In 2023, for the ninth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston the Number 1 hospital in South Carolina. Learn more about our patient services.

MUSC has a total enterprise annual operating budget of $5.9 billion. The nearly 26,000 MUSC family members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, students, affiliates and care team members who deliver groundbreaking education, research, and patient care.