JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Porter Family Children’s Trauma Center at Wolfson Children’s Hospital on Friday was verified by the American College of Surgeons as a level-one pediatric trauma center, making it one of only a few dozen in the country with such a designation.
It’s a special verification by the American College of Surgeons – which basically means that this facility has the dedicated staff, equipment, resources, and functionality – to respond to a child’s life-or-death injury in the best way possible.
According to the American Trauma Society, Level I Trauma Centers include:
- 24-hour in-house coverage by general surgeons, and prompt availability of care in specialties such as orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, radiology, internal medicine, plastic surgery, oral and maxillofacial, pediatric and critical care.
- Referral resource for communities in nearby regions.
- Provides leadership in prevention, public education to surrounding communities.
- Provides continuing education of the trauma team members.
- Incorporates a comprehensive quality assessment program.
- Operates an organized teaching and research effort to help direct new innovations in trauma care.
- Program for substance abuse screening and patient intervention.
- Meets minimum requirement for annual volume of severely injured patients.
“The Wolfson Children’s Trauma team is trained to provide specialized care to the most critically injured babies, children and teens in Northeast Florida and far beyond,” said Lisa Nichols, MBA, BSN, RN, CCRN-K, manager of Wolfson Children’s Pediatric Trauma Program. “The miracles they perform each and every day have impacted countless children and families, and as a team, they have worked hard to attain this prestigious honor.”
For a medical facility to be a level-one pediatric trauma center, the ACS does on-site reviews in order to scrutinize how well-equipped the facility is, but also, its level of efficiency.
“Most of the visits [from the ACS] are actually spent on talking with us on how we review every case that comes through the door, how we dissected that case, and look at opportunities for improvement,” said Dr. Robert Letton, a pediatric trauma surgeon at Wolfson. “Maybe we could have gotten to the O.R. quicker, or maybe the blood could have gotten up quicker or something like that, but there is never a case that comes through the door where we don’t identify something that we might have been able to do better.”
The Trauma team at Wolfson is made up of more than 20 different kinds of advanced practiced doctors, surgeons, nurses, and specialists ready to respond 24/7.
More information about the makeup of the trauma team can be found here.