The Kansas Trauma Program recently named Great Bend Regional Hospital a Level IV Trauma Center, a designation earned through the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Kansas Trauma System. The statewide program serves as a systematic approach to providing care to the injured patient. It’s a network of relationships between EMS providers, emergency departments, and tertiary referral facilities, designed to direct the trauma patient to the resources most appropriate for the care needed based on the nature of the injury.
Great Bend Regional Hospital first pursued the designation in 2013 to better serve the area’s healthcare needs, but every facility must resubmit their paperwork and undergo inspection every three years. “Being a Level IV Trauma Center means that we can provide emergency medical care for injured patients and the timely transfer of the more seriously injured to a Level I, II, or III Trauma Center as needed,” says Emily Yarmer, ER/ICU Supervisor and Trauma Program Coordinator at Great Bend Regional Hospital. “Earning this designation takes a lot of coordination and training for our employees, but it is worth the effort to be able to adequately serve the emergent medical needs of our patients.”
According to the Kansas Trauma Program webpage, the main goals for the program are to prevent unnecessary death and disability from trauma, improve the delivery of trauma services to Kansas residents, establish standards for the trauma system, and continue to coordinate and integrate the trauma system with the EMS system in Kansas and in the surrounding states.
“The goal of the trauma system is to ensure each patient is properly triaged and matched to the hospital with the most appropriate resources as quickly as possible,” says Carman Allen, Trauma Program Director for KDHE. “Because patients with severe injuries require rapid, specialized treatment to ensure the best chance for recovery, a trauma system would increase their chances for survival and reduce their chance of permanent disability.”