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New MUSC hospital taking shape by Heather Woolwine Public Relations One year ago this week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the go ahead to commence construction on the new hospital with its promise to fund the $400 million dollar project.   “It was really amazing to watch the process,” said Lisa Montgomery, vice president for Finance and Support Services. “We’re talking about an entity with no liquidity trying to entertain the thought of financing a $400 million project. It’s nothing short of a miracle. I’ll be honest, the odds weren’t good, and it’s my job to worry. But everything worked out, and I’m so pleased with how well all of the working relationships and teamwork progressed throughout the project. The way everyone worked together was refreshing.”   Indeed, it would be difficult to find a soul on campus involved with this project who wouldn’t proclaim a dedication to collaboration as the real hero responsible for the new hospital.   Kim Duckworth, left, Facilities Management, John Cooper, MUHA finance director, Stuart Smith, MUHA executive director, and Annette Drachman, Legal Services director, share a laugh. “If you surveyed all the hospital administrators in the industry (across the country), they would most likely feel that the one thing they would like to be a part of in their career is the building of a new hospital,” said W. Stuart Smith, MUSC vice president for operations and MUSC Medical Center executive director. “This project is a dream  come true. I believe this has been a great experience for all those involved. So far, it has been fun and very exciting. We have a wonderful team.”   As they sat in the North Tower, John Cooper, director of MUHA Finance, Annette Drachman, MUHA Legal Services director, and Kim Duckworth, Facilities Management, spoke and laughed like those who’ve seen it all, together.   Through all the good natured jabs, wisecracks, and pretend promises of never going through that much work again, a cohesive spirit emulates from people part of a larger group that endured an event so mammoth and historical for MUSC, they are almost speechless when asked to describe it. Almost.   “Every step in this entire process was a challenge,” Drachman said, “and it was so creative because something like this had never been done before. The really amazing thing was the ‘get-it-done’ attitude that engulfed every level of the institution so that the project could happen. We all received clear guidance that this was the priority and to put other things aside as much as possible to move things along. It was very intense and certainly couldn’t have been done without a great deal of teamwork from those directly involved with the project and also from those who had to fill in for us and pick up the slack.”   “The atmosphere was very similar to political campaigns that I’ve worked on before,” Duckworth said. “You have this real sense of camaraderie and focus. It’s a job with a finite end and everyone is working as hard as humanly possible to achieve a common goal.”   “The key to the success of the project were the relationships at every level, and that is no small endeavor,” said Marion Woodbury, special assistant to MUSC President Ray Greenberg. “There was a lot of support from our board of trustees, our president, the state treasurer’s office, our investment bankers, HUD, and other governments and individuals that made the process very timely and well-executed.”   Chris Malanuk, director of strategic planning and project director for the new hospital construction, explains the construction project to visitors representing the Linyi People's Hospital, Linyi, Shandong, China, Oct. 3. One of the things Cooper pointed to as an element of the team’s success was the vast knowledge and advantage of having many employees who have been part of MUSC for years. “We’d all worked on other projects together before, even our investment bankers and various attorneys,” he said. “But when you have a deal this big, you still have an incredible number of people involved that simply cannot get together all the time. We spent hours upon hours in phone conferences that included sometimes as many as 40 people representing state, city, and federal governments, financial institutions, contractors, designers, and so on. I know we had the biggest distribution list that HUD had ever dealt with before.”   “We were so lucky to have people like Stuart, who just knew where to go for information or who to talk to because they know MUSC so well,” Drachman said. Smith has worked at MUSC for more than 30 years.   With an unrelenting list of details and stipulations requiring intense scrutiny, the massive group assembled to complete the financial application required by HUD to receive funding.   A financial feasibility study, legal documents, architectural designs, property issues and land transfers, ownership issues, tax preparations, environmental impact studies, and a slew of other details kept Cooper, Drachman, and Duckworth on their toes for more than 18 months. Duckworth was responsible for physically pulling together and chased down parts of the application.   Twice, the name of the game changed when a request from HUD asked that the two major projects under the umbrella of the replacement project, the hospital itself and the energy plant to accompany it, combine under one bond application; only to have the request made that the two entities be separated once again several months later.   “The bond closing for the hospital took place on Dec. 22, and we were literally waiting for the last piece of paper to come off the fax at 1:58 for our 2 o’clock deadline,” Drachman said. “I’m completely serious when I say that I spent Christmas morning looking over the documents for the energy plant closing on Dec. 29. We literally had to have every last second to tie up those last bits. There was legal documentation like you wouldn’t believe.”   Drachman also tipped her hat to Hal Currey, Hospital Administration and Special Projects. “Hal was a phenomenal project leader because we’d all be so stressed out and ready to throw in the towel and he would come in, get us calm and keep us focused,” she said. “Tensions were so high at several points in the process and you’d get on the phone or sit in your office and just want to say, ‘Forget it! I can’t do it!’ But through all of that, there was never any one person that was the source of tension or who served as an obstacle. It was always a process or a group frustration that would make things stressful.”   “I know that I heard on several occasions when we’d hit a roadblock, ‘oh, that’s it, we’re going under,’ but John, Annette, Kim, Stuart, and Lisa seemed to really keep things from falling apart,” Currey said. “It really had that kind of post-Hugo feeling where you think that the world is blowing up but everybody just comes together instead and makes things happen.”   “I’ve been here for 28 years and every bond deal that’s been done for the medical center,” Cooper said. “Every one of those was pure vanilla compared to this because we had so many complications that involved refinancing and working with an extraordinary number of bankers and attorneys. There was always a deadline and it was tough, but people sacrifice all the time to reach an important goal.”   Now referred to in certain circles as “HUDsworth,” Duckworth sees the three volumes of the HUD application, about a foot thick each, as a testament to the miracles of teamwork and determination. “There would have been no way to do this without the enormous amount of support from various governments, HUD, the project group, and the numbers of people who helped the project simply by helping us continue to do our every day jobs while we were so focused on this project. How do you quantify all of that? You just have to know that it worked because everyone worked together.”   “That’s why people work in big institutions,” Currey said. “Institutions have big goals and aspirations, things that are set out because they’ll make some sort of difference. There may have been plenty of frustrations, but everyone carried their weight and that’s what made all the difference.”   All agreed that without the cooperation and input of state, federal, and local governments, the VA Hospital, and several other entities, the deal would never have been more than a pipe dream.   Friendly, yet tough negotiations made the project possible at all levels, and when the HUD application was received and accepted in less than two months, the group was ecstatic.    “You go through so much trying to do the best job that you can and you hear so many people saying it’s the biggest or the best deal they’ve ever worked on, and then to get the response as quickly as we did, well, it’s incredibly satisfying,” Duckworth said.   “Every time I drive by or I have family in town and I want to show them what I’ve been so involved with and say ‘There it is,’ I have an enormous sense of pride in having worked towards something that will be so beneficial to this community and was such a positive, although difficult, personal experience,” Drachman said.   Now, with necessary relationships established and the ink dry on paper, MUSC must stay at the top of its game for the years to come in order to meet the bond covenants that more or less dictate certain rules for the medical center to play by. The issues of design, architecture, and practicalities of a working hospital consume the project staff at this point. The task of designing, getting funding for, and constructing a new hospital in phases is no small undertaking and thus required MUSC to change the way it does business to accommodate needed growth and a forward-thinking attitude.   But don’t believe for one minute that the next step isn’t beginning to take shape.   “It’s time to start thinking about the next phase,” Woodbury said.     Friday, Oct. 14, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. 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