Labette Health Achieves Trauma Center Verification

PARSONS, Kan., Sept. 18, 2009 – Labette Health was notified Thursday that it had been verified as a Level III Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons’ Verification Review Committee. It is now the only ACS-verified trauma center in Southeast Kansas and currently is the only Level III trauma center in the whole state of Kansas.

“We are extremely proud of our Level III status,” President and Chief Executive Officer William Mahoney said. “Although we have been providing this level of emergency trauma care for some time, this verification confirms that we are much more than a general rural hospital. We are in an elite class of facilities that can take care of more types of patient emergencies. Our trauma team and medical staff members deserve a lot of credit for this distinction.”

Labette Health is one of only six ACS-verified trauma centers in the state of Kansas. The University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan.; Wesley Medical Center and Via Christi Regional Medical Center, both in Wichita, are level I trauma centers. Stormont-Vail HealthCare in Topeka and Overland Park Regional Medical Center are level II trauma centers.

The verification was recommended by an ACS site-inspection team of trauma surgeons that toured Labette Health and met with hospital staff and physicians August 26 and 27.

“As they were leaving, one of the reviewers told me that he had never seen a hospital come so far in so short a time,” Mahoney said. “There are several processes that we do here that the reviewers said they would suggest to other hospitals around the country.”

"They specified many strengths we have in our handling of various trauma situations; for example, prehospital work done by our EMS teams. We have eICU video monitoring in our intensive-care unit, which provides assistance from a remote intensivist-led team; They cited the way various doctors cover for each other, which expedites treatment. There are processes in place which help this to be."

For Labette Health Trauma Coordinator Tereasa Demerrit, R.N., B.S.N., the official notification was a happy ending to a process that began in November 2007. An initial consultation with the ACS review team showed a number of areas that were targeted for improvement, and Demerrit coordinated efforts to ensure that those needs were met.

“It involved the entire house,” Demerrit said. “Trauma care starts with EMS and the Emergency Department, but it involves the entire facility. We took an integrative approach, and my role as Trauma Coordinator was to work behind the scenes, assist in writing policies and procedures and developing the performance-improvement process.”

Level III trauma centers are able to provide prompt assessment, resuscitation, stabilization of injured patients and emergency operations. Many critically injured patients receive complete care from EMS transport to the emergency room through their rehabilitation at Labette Health, although more seriously injured patients are stabilized there and then transported to a level I trauma center. Level I centers provide the highest of the five levels of specialized trauma care.

Although ACS does not actually designate trauma centers – the Kansas Department of Health and Environment does that – it provides confirmation that a hospital has demonstrated its commitment to providing the highest quality of trauma care for all injured patients. It verifies that emergency services and board-certified surgeons, as well as clinical support such as laboratory services, blood bank and radiology are available around the clock.