Long known as a leader in medical technology, Birmingham, Alabama area hospitals are cooperating to route severe trauma patients and stroke patients based on area-wide resource availability.
Patients entered into the system must meet specific criteria that qualifies them as severe trauma or stroke cases.
The system currently assists approximately 250 severe trauma patients per month.
In Alabama, the LifeTrac computer system helps coordinate activity between:
- 23 Actively Participating Hospitals plus Other Regional Hospitals
- 180 Emergency Service Provider Organizations
- 2,500 EMT-Paramedics
- LifeSaver Helicopters
This system officially came on-line in October of 1996. The Trauma Communications Center (TCC) is manned 24 hours-a-day by specially trained EMS staff. All of the staff have extensive field experience.
Hospital-to-Hospital status information is maintained by Microsoft Windows-based communications servers at the Trauma Communications Center. An offsite data backup server automatically and continuously protects system data.