Hospitals Start Alternating Trauma Care Sacred Heart, Deaconess Take Turns Treating Patients

Severely injured patients in the Spokane area no longer are guaranteed treatment at their favorite hospital or the one their doctor prefers. Instead, they’ll go to the trauma center of the week.

At 7 a.m. Tuesday, Spokane’s two largest hospitals began taking turns treating trauma patients - one week on, one week off.

The plan, which drew strong criticism from the American College of Surgeons, is one of just a few like it in the country.

The move is the hospitals’ response to a state law requiring health officials to appoint a limited number of hospitals as trauma centers.

Eighteen private-practice, on-call surgeons will work rotating schedules at Sacred Heart and Deaconess medical centers, said Jim Nania, emergency room director at Deaconess.

While on call, surgeons can see patients in their private practices but can’t get tied up in surgeries outside the emergency room. They also have to be within 20 minutes of the hospital.

Hospital officials say the new system will save money by cutting duplication and allowing hospitals to share expensive surgical equipment.

Doctors at the American College of Surgeons objected to the Spokane hospitals’ plan, arguing only one hospital should treat the most seriously injured patients.

Having too many medical workers treating trauma patients dilutes the expertise, they said.

No layoffs at the two hospitals are anticipated because every week, both emergency rooms will continue to treat less severe injuries which make up the bulk of all trauma, Nania said.

Paramedics and emergency helicopter crews are advised which hospital takes seriously injured patients on a given week.

Trauma patients who get to an emergency room on their own may be treated at that hospital or transferred, Nania said.

Under the new state trauma program, the two hospitals received Level II designations. Holy Family Hospital and Valley Hospital and Medical Center are Level III centers, a lower designation. They usually will treat patients who are injured but stable.

New rules say patients who are unconscious, are in shock or have severely abnormal vital signs must be taken to the highest-level trauma center within 30 minutes.

Those centers also will take people with obvious significant injuries, such as gunshots.

Together, Sacred Heart and Deaconess expect to treat some 500 trauma patients a year.

a, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TYPES OF INJURIES Trauma is the No. 1 killer of people under 45. Trauma patients include people who are stabbed, shot, burned and badly hurt in car crashes and other incidents.