By Ben Haskew

Steps taken earlier this month could give the Upstate, quite literally, a shot in the economic arm to help our area thrive.

Trustee boards for both Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center and the University of South Carolina approved a plan on Aug. 6 to expand USC’s medical-education program in Greenville. This landmark initiative will help address the long-standing physician shortage in the state and improve access to heath care statewide.

In the near term, this project will pave the way for hundreds of new students as well as up to 50 additional faculty, administrators and support personnel. But it’s clear that the project will also spur additional job growth, increase per capita income and help make the state more attractive to corporations considering expansion or relocation.

Consider the case of Southwest Airlines, which recently announced their decision to expand service to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. The availability of a teaching and research institution like GHS was one of many factors that influenced them to come here. They saw this as an important indicator of the long-term prospects for the larger community and region.

Likewise, education, health care and cultural needs were part of the draw that helped attract the corporate headquarters of Hubbell Lighting Inc. to its new location off Interstate 85.

A health-care cluster

The Upstate is blessed to have many fine healthcare systems, which together already form the beginnings of an economic cluster. This cluster, energized by the expansion, will act as a magnet for a highly educated and sophisticated healthcare workforce; those leading doctors and researchers will in turn attract public and private research funding, spark entrepreneurial growth – and provide exceptional health care to our entire region.

I applaud the boards of both GHS and USC for their innovative approach and vision.

Health care in America is at a unique juncture – and not only because of the Health Care Reform Act, which is expected to add a half-million people to the rolls of those eligible for insured medical care in South Carolina. Our population is aging, and our doctors are aging with it. To meet the new challenges, new ways of doing business must be forged. The federal government estimates that 26% of all new jobs created in the U.S. economy will be in the healthcare and social assistance industry. Likewise, healthcare support occupations are expected to increase by 29%.

This unique partnership is an important strategic element for keeping the Upstate in good physical and economic health. It’s also a primary example of the innovative thinking endorsed by the Greater Greenville Chamber of Commerce’s Accelerate initiative, which supports what I like to call “catalytic” opportunities such as this one.

The five-year Accelerate initiative is aimed at increasing per capita income through three broad areas: improving business conditions and support for catalytic projects; growing and attracting world-class talent; and fostering high-impact entrepreneurship projects such as the proposed medical campus expansion.

The proposed expansion builds on a partnership that has been in place since 1991. Under the proposed expansion, medical students will be placed at GHS for all four years. Currently, only about 35% of USC’s third and fourth-year medical school students are trained here at GHS. The first full class could start as soon as 2012, eventually leading to an annual enrollment of approximately 400 students. The investment, expected to cost between an additional $35 million and $37 million over 10 years, will be paid for through student tuition and GHS’ endowment funds.

The proposed expansion must be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).

Addressing a physician shortage

South Carolina is already experiencing a physician shortage, and the current system cannot produce enough physicians quickly enough. Expanding physician education and training in Greenville where USC medical students have been training for two decades increases not only the number of future physicians but the likelihood that these physicians will stay in South Carolina. And with the federal window of opportunity on proposing, accrediting and opening new medical education programs only open until 2015, now is the time to move forward and begin this endeavor.

A yearly economic scorecard, created for the Greater Greenville Chamber of Commerce by Clemson University, shows that our per capita income growth has declined relative to the national average for the past nine years. Ten years ago, per capita income in the Greenville area was ahead of Charleston and nearly even with Columbia. But Greenville’s per capita income fell from $35,044 in 2008 to $32,773 last year, putting us behind both Charleston and Columbia according to recently released data.

Drivers of per capita income, according to the Clemson scorecard, include labor force and education; knowledge workers; innovative activity; entrepreneurial environment; employment diversity and density; and industrial structure and composition. A project like the expanded medical campus will hit each of these marks.

This is an opportunity for the greater Greenville area and region to retain the best and brightest of these new physicians. As the medical program grows, the economic impact of the additional students, faculty and support personnel will also directly impact the local economy, ultimately causing a ripple effect that reaches out to the physicians opening their own offices and hiring staff ranging from RN’s to managers, medical receptionists and clerks.

And in the long term, who knows how many entrepreneurial firms will be created by medical research, clinical trials and other innovations generated by having a world-class medical program in the Upstate.

Ben Haskew is President and CEO of the Greenville Chamber and has held this position since December, 2003. He can be reached at bhaskew@greenvillechamber.org