Trauma Centers the Centers for Disease Control

Trauma Centers

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia describe a trauma center as a kind of medical facility, usually a hospital, that has "…resources and equipment needed to help care for severely injured patients" (CDC). There are several levels to trauma centers, beginning with Level I and going up to Level IV. The Level I trauma center is the provider of the "highest level of trauma care" and Level IV only provide "initial trauma care" and patients that are first served at Level IV trauma centers are transferred after initial care to higher level centers (CDC).

The CDC is actively involved in a program to raise the level of awareness that the public has about both access to and locations of trauma centers. The United States Congress passed a bill in 2007 to attempt to ensure that Americans would have sufficient numbers of trauma centers, because clearly questions have been raised as to the number of trauma centers that are needed. The National Trauma Center Stabilization Act of 2007 is actually an amendment to the Public Service Act; it revises the Act through:

One, establishing three programs to award grants to "…public, nonprofit, Indian Health Service, Indian tribal, and urban Indian trauma center" in order to assist those centers in "defraying substantial uncompensated care costs" and reducing the risk that existing trauma care center will close due to a lack of funds. The second important aspect of the Act is to establish "minimum qualifications for trauma centers" that includes the guidelines for providing treatment for patients with no health insurance (www.govtrack.us).

A perfect example of why trauma centers are so vitally important to communities was evident on the night that a shooter went into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and began injuring and killing innocent movie-goers. He killed 12 people and injured more than fifty. A report from The Medical Center of Aurora ("Centennial Medical Plaza") shows that the trauma center received 18 patients from the movie theater. "Three of the patients remain in the hospital -- one is in critical condition, one in serious condition and one in fair condition," the report indicates. The Swedish Medical Center trauma center received four victims and two are still in the hospital "in fair condition." The only problem the media reported regarding the injured persons was the apparent delay in ambulances arriving in order to take the wounded to trauma centers.

Another example of the value of trauma centers is reported in a peer-reviewed article in The American Surgeon. In 2011, a powerful tornado (called an EF-4) touched down in northwest Georgia and southeast Tennessee. It stayed on the ground for 48 miles and destroyed homes while taking many lives and injuring many others. The regional Level I trauma center in Chattanooga, Tennessee (Erlanger Health Systems) took one hundred four adult patients into their emergency departments. Of those, 28 (27%) were admitted to trauma service and of those 28, 16 (57%) were male and between 21 and 87 years of age. Those 16 their average stay in the trauma department was around 11 days. Eleven of the 104 patients were kept in intensive care units with injuries like "…soft tissue, bony fractures, and the chest" (Hartmann, 2011).