Legislator filing bill to create trauma system for Kentucky hospitals; will rural hospitals support it?

We reported here three weeks ago that rural Americans are dying because their states lack systems to designate hospitals to treat traumatic situations. One of those states is Kentucky, but maybe not for long, if advocates can overcome a tough budget situation -- and maybe opposition from rural hospitals. Yes, you read that right. Rural hospitals. Read on.

"State Rep. Bob DeWeese (R-Louisville), a surgeon, said he expects to file legislation early this week that would create a statewide trauma system," reports Karla Ward of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The system would provide more education for doctors, nurses and paramedics to care for and assess severely injured patients, so that they are taken to the most appropriate facility as quickly as possible. ... The legislation would also encourage more community hospitals to seek designation as trauma centers, and would enable statewide guidelines and protocols on where patients should be taken for triage."

Dr. Jeffrey Coughenour, a trauma surgeon at the University of Kentucky, told Ward that states with mature trauma systems have seen a 15 to 20 percent fewer deaths from traumatic injuries. A bill to create a system in Kentucky passed the state House last year but died in the Senate. The bill's price tag is $2.8 million, which will probably be tough to get at a time when the state budget is being cut. DeWeese said the Kentucky Hospital Association supports his bill; however, that doesn't necessarily mean that all its members do.

Ward reports, "Smaller hospitals have balked at the idea because of competition -- they fear that the hospital in the next county will look better if it becomes a trauma center and they don't, Coughenour said. There's also the concern that a trauma system will cause small community hospitals to lose patients to the larger trauma centers." Coughenour told Ward that his university, which has one of the two top trauma centers in the state, gets many patients who would be as well served closer to home and has no interest in taking patients from smaller hospitals. "We don't want everybody," he said. "We're too busy here as it is." (Read more)