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2 McLeod Health Clarendon nurses receive 2026 Palmetto Gold Award. Posted Sunday, March 29, 2026 6:00 am BY MCLEOD HEALTH McLeod Health is honored to announce eight McLeod nurses were selected to receive the 2026 Palmetto Gold Award. These nurses represent McLeod Regional Medical Center, McLeod Health Clarendon, McLeod Health Dillon and McLeod Health Seacoast. They join the ranks of the 250 previous McLeod nurses who have received this outstanding award. Two nurses from McLeod Health Clarendon were honored, Tracy Ganes, CRNA, and Katie Marlowe, RN. Nurses from other McLeod locations receiving the award were Laura Bolella, MSN, RN; Amber Jacobs, BSN, RN; Johnathan Moody, RN, WCC, OMS; Landon Simmons, MSN, RN; Rebecca Vincent, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC; and Lawanda Williams, RN. The Palmetto Gold Award was created by various nursing organizations throughout South Carolina as a platform to recognize nursing and support nursing education with scholarship funds. Each year, employers from a wide variety of South Carolina health care settings nominate outstanding nurses from their organizations to be considered as one of the 100 nurses honored with this prestigious award. The nominators are asked to provide evidence of how the nominee demonstrated excellence to the profession by addressing the following criteria: promoting and advancing the profession of nursing; displaying caring and commitment to patients, families, and colleagues; and demonstrating leadership by assisting others to grow and develop. This is a competitive process, and usually several hundred nominations are submitted with only 100 nurses being selected. Each year the competition for the Palmetto Gold Nurse Recognition Program is more stringent. To select the recipients, a team of six nurses from across the state participate in a blind review process. The nominees are not referred to by name or place of employment on the nomination sections seen by the judges. Discover more Demographics Education SPORTS Local News Movies City & Local Guides Geographic Reference Newspapers The recipients of the 2026 Palmetto Gold Award will be recognized at the Palmetto Gold Gala on April 11 in Columbia. To support the future of nursing, the proceeds from the Palmetto Gold Gala are used to provide scholarships to each registered nursing undergraduate program in South Carolina. In 2008, the Renatta Loquist Graduate Nursing Scholarship was created to honor Mrs. Loquist, a member of the original Palmetto Gold committee and a leader in nursing in its state. About McLeod Health Founded in 1906, McLeod Health is a locally owned and managed, not for profit organization supported by the strength of more than 1,000 members on its medical staff and more than 3,800 licensed nurses McLeod Health is also composed of approximately 18,000 team members and more than 100 physician practice locations throughout its 18-county service area. With seven hospitals, McLeod Health operates three Health and Fitness Centers, a Sports Medicine and Outpatient Rehabilitation Center, Hospice and Home Health Services. The system currently has 945 licensed beds. The hospitals within McLeod Health include McLeod Regional Medical Center, McLeod Health Dillon, McLeod Health Loris, McLeod Health Seacoast, McLeod Health Carolina Forest, McLeod Health Cheraw and McLeod Health Clarendon.

Two McLeod Health hospitals make the Forbes' Top Hospitals 2026 List. McLEOD HEALTH DILLON 11 FEBRUARY 2026 Forbes has named McLeod Health Loris and McLeod Health Dillon to its inaugural Top Hospitals 2026 List. These two McLeod Hospitals support rural communities based on the mission and quality of McLeod Health and offer local care so patients do not have to travel for their healthcare needs. "This recognition would not have been possible without our teams who are dedicated to improving the quality of care we deliver to our patients and their families daily," said Dr. Caetie Rabon, Chief Quality Officer for McLeod Health. "We are committed to ongoing efforts toward quality improvements focusing on excellence in the delivery of healthcare to the communities we serve." Forbes developed the ratings to evaluate general acute care hospitals in the U.S. and to offer consumers unbiased information on which hospitals can offer top-notch, high-value medical services, no matter where they are in the country. The ratings were calculated with the help of healthcare measurement experts and data collected from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Provider Data Catalog. Hospitals were evaluated based on healthcare quality measures that assess patient outcomes, hospital best practices, value, and patient experience. Approximately 5,400 general acute hospitals were initially eligible for consideration. Roughly 2,600 met the inclusion criteria. Of the hospitals evaluated, 259 hospitals received an overall rating of five stars, 520 received an overall rating of four stars, and 519 received an overall rating of three stars.

Tidelands, McLeod Health comment on federal funding given toward facilities. HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) - A few hospitals along the Grand Strand and Pee Dee have received federal funding as part of a U.S. House appropriations bill passed on Tuesday. Tidelands Health received $5 million for the construction of its women's and children's center, while McLeod received $1.1 million for facility and equipment upgrades. Tidelands Health CEO Bruce Bailey said the hospital is pleased to have received the funding, as it will allow them to bring needed care to the community. Bailey said Tidelands identified better women's and children's health as a need in the community after South Carolina identified maternal-infant mortality and morbidity as a real problem in the state. Bailey said the center will include their OB practice and their pediatric practice, which will include pediatric subspecialities such as pediatric gastroenterology. The center will also offer maternal-fetal medicine specialists who provide pre, during, and postnatal care. "All the pediatric subspecialities that you'd have to go to Charleston for right now to the Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital and their clinics, I want to bring those here," Bailey said. Bailey said Tidelands feels confident its new facility, being built off Highways 31 and 707, is a good location that will provide easier access to care in the Horry County community and even more rural neighboring communities. Bailey said this greater access to care will also be helpful in relieving stress for families - and more specifically - mothers. "If you're a mom and you've got three kids and one of them needs care in Charleston, and you've got to pull that off two or three times a month or a week, that's a lot," Bailey said. "So anything we can do to bring that care here is an objective." Bailey said overall, this facility will help make it easier for the community to get the care they need. "If you think about pediatric subspeciality care, you've got an infant, a small one that's got to go to Charleston once a week, twice a week, whatever," he said. "So, we can bring that care here through this center." McLeod Health also received federal funding in the amount of $1.1 million. McLeod chief financial officer and senior vice president, Christian Soura, said the money will go towards upgrades to the fluoroscopy room and new X-Ray and CT scanners at its hospital in Dillon. Soura said fluoroscopy shows what is happening inside the body in real time, unlike an x-ray, which shows what's happening at a frozen moment in time. Soura said these imaging upgrades are vital for patient care, as better technology means higher quality care that patients will no longer have to travel for. "For us, a big part of it was about access, was about ensuring that these services are still available in Dillon," he said. "And that people aren't asked to make trips that not only require transportation resources that they may or may not have, but it can take quite a bit of time out of your day, and if that means missing work, if it means missing school, there are other real-world implications of those if this kind of care is not available." Soura said the $1.1 million in federal funding will pay for a portion of the project, and once they know when the money will become available, it will help them determine a timeline for construction. As for Tidelands Health, the women's and children's center is expected to be completed towards the end of 2028, as part of the new Tidelands Health Carolina Bays Hospital campus. Morgan Baker is a multimedia journalist at News13. She is from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and joined the News13 team in December 2025. She graduate magma cum laude from Coastal Carolina University in May 2025. Keep up with Morgan on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, You can read more of her work here.