The Medical University of South Carolina’s Hollings Cancer Center is taking prostate cancer education and on-site blood tests to communities across the state, MUSC announced Oct. 28. The S.C. Department of Health and Human Services paid for it with money from the federal Rural Health Transformation Program, according to MUSC.

It is one of the first visible results of a program in which the Charleston-based academic health system has done better than almost anyone in South Carolina.

How the money was split

Gov. Henry McMaster announced 228 grants totaling $167,299,900.69 on Sept. 15, chosen from 712 applications, ABC News 4 reported. The state received $200,030,252 in program money for fiscal 2026, the agency said last December.

A Charleston Business Report tally of the agency’s published award list found that MUSC and the Medical University Hospital Authority, the entity named on awards for MUSC Health’s hospitals, won 18 of the grants. Together they total $18,553,348, about 11% of the money.

Only Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood received more, about $24.1 million across 20 grants. Hampton Regional Medical Center was third, at about $13.2 million.

Statewide, facility improvements were the largest category, at about $67.7 million, followed by health information technology at about $44.9 million.

MUSC’s single largest award is $4,480,337 to its Center for Telehealth, under a category for modernizing health information technology.

The biggest share went to buildings outside the Charleston area. MUSC Health hospitals won about $6.5 million for facility improvements:

  • $2.25 million across four grants for Lancaster.
  • $2 million for Orangeburg.
  • About $1.2 million across three grants for Chester.
  • $1.1 million for the Pee Dee division.

MUSC also won $1.87 million for a “Masterclass Training Series,” about half of the $3.57 million awarded in that category. Five grants totaling about $4.29 million fall under a category for expanding community care sites, part of an initiative the state calls Wellness Within Reach. The state’s description of that initiative includes mobile health units, crisis response teams and pop-up clinics.

The rest went to chronic disease program expansion, at $643,534, and remote patient monitoring at MUSC Health Orangeburg, at $725,020.

The award list does not describe individual projects, and MUSC’s announcement does not say how much the prostate screening effort received.

Other Charleston-area winners

Fetter Health Care Network won two grants totaling $682,174, one for health information technology and one for community care sites.

The award list also shows mobile crisis response grants of $496,788.50 for the Charleston Dorchester Mental Health Center and $178,879.35 for the Berkeley Community Mental Health Center.

Screening on the road

Under the Hollings project, men attend a one-hour session on prostate cancer, and eligible men can get a PSA blood test on site, according to MUSC. Men ages 40 to 69 at higher risk, including Black men and men with a family history of the disease, are eligible, as are men at average risk starting at age 50. Patient navigators then help with follow-up care, including repeat tests, MRIs and biopsies when needed.

The project works with four federally qualified health centers: ReGenesis Health Care in the Upstate, Eau Clair Cooperative Health Family Health Center in the Midlands, Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services in the Lowcountry and Low Country Health Care Services in the coastal region, MUSC said.

“We want to meet people where they are in their communities,” said Marvella Ford, associate director of community outreach and engagement at Hollings, in MUSC’s announcement.

Ford said she hopes the connections will outlast what MUSC described as a one-year project.

“We’re not screening them and leaving them,” she said.

What comes next

In announcing the state’s award last December, McMaster said the state would “put these funds to work to strengthen rural health care.”

On Oct. 1, the agency posted a reminder about a public input survey meant to help inform future funding decisions.