Upstate hospital building new training center to help address SC’s nursing shortage

An Anderson hospital is building a center to train more nurses in South Carolina’s Upstate.

Construction is under way on the AnMed Education and Innovation Center, a 30,000-square-foot space beside AnMed Medical Center that will provide clinical classroom space for Tri-County Technical College’s expanding nursing program.

As of last December, South Carolina had about 12,000 fewer nurses than it needed, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. While the state is projected to narrow that gap to 7,250 by 2038, it will still have one of the largest shortages in the country.

Healthcare providers have advertised more than 2,000 nursing job openings in South Carolina in recent months, according to AnMed.

“No one organization can solve this challenge alone,” Tri-County Tech’s President Galen DeHay said in a statement. “It takes strong partnerships between healthcare providers and educational institutions who are willing to invest in the future of our region’s workforce.”

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Meanwhile, Tri-County Tech has a waiting list for its nursing program. The school can accept 60 nursing students a semester.

The partnership with AnMed is expected to bump that capacity to 160 students per semester within five years.

The new center, built by AnMed, will have classrooms, a computer lab and two patient simulation labs where students can train on medical-surgical care, critical care, labor and delivery, emergency care, and behavioral health procedures, under the guidance of two AnMed nurses.

Students also will perform their clinical rotations at the hospital and are eligible for paid part-time employment.

“This partnership is about building the future of nursing from within our own community,” Shaunda Trotter, AnMed’s chief nursing officer, said in a statement. “By connecting students directly with our caregivers and clearing their path into practice, we are creating a stronger, more sustainable workforce.”

The hospital system did not say how much it’s investing to build the center, nor did it give a timeline for opening.

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AnMed already works with multiple colleges in the state to offer training for doctors, bachelor’s degree-level nurses, physical therapists, radiologic technicians and more.

Those students then graduate with an inside track to employment at AnMed, an independent, not-for-profit regional health system covering South Carolina’s Upstate and northeast Georgia.

The hospital system has 648 beds across four hospitals, employing more than 4,000 people, including 742 doctors. And it’s expanding.

In addition to the Anderson hospital, AnMed’s Piedmont campus and freestanding emergency department opened in 2025.

A new campus serving Clemson and Central is under construction.