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SMH among hospitals to seek trauma system help |
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Wednesday, 08 July 2009 |
Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton is among more than 60 medical facilities that have applied to receive trauma care funding that will be generated from an increase in Arkansas’ tobacco tax.
Hospitals faced a July 1 deadline to sign up for the trauma system scheduled to begin by 2010 and funded by a 56-cent-a-pack cigarette tax increase and higher prices on other tobacco products. Of the 63 hospitals seeking to join, five signed up as Level One trauma centers, promising to provide specialized surgeons and doctors 24 hours a day.
SMH applied as Level Three, said Steve Henson, SMH vice president and chief operating officer. For Level 3, the general surgeon must be on call and available 24/7 within 30 minutes, he said. Levels One and Two require that a general surgeon be in house and immediately available and that a neuro surgeon be available on call and available at all times within 30 minutes.
The start-up grant for Level Three is $125,000 and cannot exceed that amount, Henson said. It is to be used to provide for any training or equipment that a hospital may need to meet the requirements at its level of trauma designation, he said.
“The trauma system, in and of itself, will be an alliance of hospitals across the state that are joining together to create a web of patient care services that are readily available to provide for the critically injured patients of our state,” Henson said. “The system will allow hospitals to communicate what their capabilities are at any given time and have arranged for pre-existing transfer agreements to higher levels of care
when necessary, such as the need for a neuro surgeon’s skills or a dedicated burn unit. “
Ed Barham, a state Department of Health spokesman. “But, we know that the hospitals that we would like to see ... are looking at their own situations and we’re working with a number of them in any way we can.”
Barham said hospitals continue to apply to join the program, even though the deadline passed. Out-of-state hospitals that aren’t part of the network will continue to accept Arkansas patients but won’t be part of the system’s computer database, which is designed to rush patients to the appropriate hospital in the precious minutes after a serious injury.
Initial plans called for the network to begin by 2010, with three hospitals designated as top trauma centers. The entire system is expected to receive $28 million in its second year of operation from the new taxes.
It currently has a $13.4 million budget to distribute to hospitals applying to join the network. Under a planned budget, Level One hospitals would receive $1 million, Level 2 would get $500,000, Level 3 would receive $125,000 and Level Four would get $25,000. Barham said the first three levels would receive half the money up front and the other half after being approved. That way, he said, they could cover the costs of getting certified and hiring needed new staffers before the system begins in earnest.
Level Four hospitals would get the funding all at once.
Out-of-state hospitals in the network would receive a portion of the funding depending on how many Arkansas patients they treated, Barham said. Those outside the network wouldn’t get funding from the trauma system.
At University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, officials expect to spend much of the proposed $1 million on hiring new doctors, adding administrative duties for working doctors and training staffers, said R.T. Fendley, the hospital’s senior associate director. He said the hospital happily would accept whatever funding the state provided in the future, but cautioned it would cover only a portion of its costs.
No hospital serving southern Arkansas applied to join the state’s new trauma system as a top provider of emergency care, meaning patients suffering life-threatening injuries may not immediately get the help they need.
Hospitals signing up as Level One trauma centers are Arkansas Children’s Hospital and UAMS, plus two hospitals in Memphis, Tenn., and one in Springfield, Mo.
Southern Arkansas towns such as Magnolia, El Dorado and others will be close only to lower level hospitals seeking to join the network.
“Are there still holes to fill? Yeah,” Barham said. “But, we know that the hospitals that we would like to see ... are looking at their own situations and we’re working with a number of them in any way we can.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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