Roger Sipe, senior VP of operations for Lexington Medical Center, was the guest speaker at the Greater Cayce-West Columbia Chamber Breakfast, Tuesday, at Stone River in West Columbia.

Sipe said Lexington Medical Center is growing and patient volume is increasing. He presented a graphic that showed from 2020 to 2021, the number of LMC’s Total Admissions rose from 34,470 to 37,697; Emergency Room visits rose from 86,108 to 93,108; Urgent Care visits rose from 80,206 to 113,588; Births rose from 3,967 to 4,282; Physician visits rose from 1.2 million to 1.3 million and the number of surgeries rose from 27,901 to 31,108.

With an increase in urgent care patients of more than 33,000, Sipe announced that Lexington Medical Center has purchased 1.77 acres at 1111 Knox-Abbott Drive in Cayce and plans to build an urgent care facility on the property.

Sipe said Lexington Health Properties Inc. currently owns 66 buildings and 4.2 million sq.-ft. in facilities. That includes LMC’s 1.6 million sq-ft. main campus on Sunset Boulevard in West Columbia. LMC recently opened a 224,000 sq.-ft. community medical facility in Richland Northeast and there is a 113,000 sq.-ft. community medical facility in Lexington.

Lexington Medical Center also expects to spend $51.5 million to build new facilities in 2022, including a three-story $18.9 million Graduate Medical Education Building across from the main campus in West Columbia, near the property where a former Bojangles restaurant was located.

A graphic put together by Research Economist Joseph Von Nessen of the the USC Darla Moore School of Business detailed Lexington Medical Center’s Impact. It showed that LMC has an $863 million economic impact in Lexington County and a $1.6 million economic impact in the Midlands. Lexington Medical Center accounts for 5.1% of Lexington County employees, according to the graphic.