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Lutheran Hospital’s new billing as the city’s second verified Level II Trauma Center demonstrates the hospital’s commitment to providing the highest quality in adult and pediatric care, its chief executive officer said Wednesday.
The hospital on Jefferson Boulevard was listed as a Level II Pediatric Trauma Center and a Level II Trauma Center on the American College of Surgeons’ Web site, which was last updated Friday. The verification is based on a nationally recognized standard in care.
“You get a chance to measure your success and your clinical outcomes externally,” Lutheran CEO Joe Dorko said, explaining the process during a brief news conference on the hospital’s helicopter pad.
Competitor Parkview Hospital on Randallia Drive is also a verified Level II adult and pediatric trauma center. It’s in the process of re-verification. In 2000, Parkview became the first hospital outside Indianapolis to be verified as a Level II trauma center.
“We’ve been a leader in trauma care and services for (more than) a decade now,” said Sue Ehinger, chief operating officer at Parkview Hospital.
Gary Booher, executive director of the Three Rivers Ambulance Authority, said patients suffering the most severe trauma – such as unconscious car accident victims – were already being transported to Lutheran Hospital and Parkview Hospital, whichever was closest. So Lutheran’s verification won’t affect local transport policy.
The ambulance authority’s medical control board decided after Parkview Hospital was verified as a trauma center that Lutheran’s trauma capabilities were “sufficiently similar,” Booher said.
Still, Lutheran’s Level II trauma “badge” might help raise its profile and attract a few more trauma patients, Dorko said. But he didn’t expect a significant change.
Eventually, however, both Lutheran and Parkview hospitals might see an influx.
Donald Reed Jr., Lutheran Hospital’s trauma medical director, is part of a state task force developing guidelines for when a patient should be transported to a verified trauma center. Because the state doesn’t have an independent certification process, it defers to the American College of Surgeons’ verification process to determine what is a trauma center, he said.
Where appropriate, Reed said, transporting a patient straight to a trauma center – even if it isn’t the closest hospital – can improve patient outcomes.
