 |
LoginTuesday, September 07, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
LifeTrac System Adds North Alabama
LifeTrac System Adds North Alabama
The LifeTrac System in Central Alabama has expanded to support North Alabama, a next step in the creation of a satewide trauma system that state officials hope will become a national model for saving lives.
The Alabama Department of Public Health launched the system in North Alabama on Feb. 25 with the goal of getting critically injured people to the most appropriate hospital quickly. It will be expanded to other parts of the state in the coming months, the agency's director, Dr. Don Williamson, said during a news conference Friday at Huntsville Hospital.
"We're extraordinarily excited about where we are," Williamson said. "We think this is a start of a historic system for the state of Alabama."
Here's how it works: Every 90 seconds, trauma dispatchers in Birmingham get a live computer update on each participating hospital. If there's a pileup on Interstate 565, for example, dispatchers will know at a glance whether Huntsville Hospital has enough available operating rooms, trauma surgeons and patient beds.
If not, they would tell paramedics to take the wreck victims to the next-closest hospital with a trauma surgeon.
So far, state dispatchers have steered 16 people with life-threatening injuries to the correct hospital based on available resources, Williamson said.
"I don't know of any miraculous saves yet," he said, "but that will happen over time."
The voluntary project also includes Athens-Limestone Hospital, Decatur General, Parkway Medical Center in Decatur, Marshall Medical Center North in Guntersville, Marshall Medical Center South in Boaz, Russellville Hospital, Cullman Regional Medical Center and Eliza Coffee Memorial in Florence.
State Sen. Parker Griffith, D-Huntsville, said critically injured people need emergency care within 60 minutes and cannot risk being taken to a hospital that is too busy to treat them. Trauma dispatchers communicate by radio with ambulance and helicopter paramedics.
"We don't want to waste that golden hour," said Griffith, a retired cancer doctor who co-sponsored a bill last year creating the trauma system.
Nearly 80 percent of the state's trauma cases are caused by wrecks; Alabama has the fourth-highest highway trauma death rate in the country.
Hospitals in and around Birmingham began coordinating their trauma care a decade ago, and Williamson said it reduced trauma deaths by 12 percent. The program has been so successful that health department officials hope to copy it statewide; they are even using the same dispatch center.
"Rather than reinvent the wheel, we thought it was cheaper to use what we already have," Williamson said.
The agency has earmarked $1.3 million to build the system's basic framework, including computers to connect hospitals with state dispatchers. Williamson hopes to eventually find enough tax dollars to reimburse hospitals that rack up huge bills treating uninsured trauma victims. Pennsylvania and Maryland, which have the country's most advanced trauma systems, pay for their programs with a $3 fee on vehicle tags, he said.
"I think we have to demonstrate that this works before we can make a strong case for (more) funding," Williamson said. "If we succeed in this, we will be the only state in the country with a seamless trauma system. It's really an opportunity to set a national standard for how (trauma care) ought to be done."
With 20 hospitals between Huntsville and Birmingham participating, 44 percent of the state's population is covered by the trauma system, he said. It will be expanded into the Tuscaloosa area next.
Dr. Rony Najjar, a Huntsville Hospital senior trauma surgeon who began pushing for a statewide program five years ago, said he is "ecstatic" to finally see it happen. Hospitals send continual updates to dispatchers, including whether X-ray, CAT scan machines, trauma surgeons and neurosurgeons are busy.
"We're doing this," Najjar said Friday, "because we want to save lives. That's the core element of it."
|
Posted on Saturday, March 08, 2008
| | Return |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|