Tufts Medical Center won its bid to become a major trauma center earlier this month, despite contention from other hospitals in the Boston area.
The hospital will now operate as an adult trauma center, a designation that requires it to provide care to all patients, regardless of the extent of their injuries. It also mandates that the medical center have an operating room open and a trauma surgeon within 15 minutes of the facility at all times.
Before the hospital was awarded its new status, adult patients who had suffered from more severe injuries often had to be sent to one of the four existing trauma centers in the Boston area: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. The four institutions are all designated as Level I adult trauma centers; Tufts will operate as a Level II center.
Level I institutions receive a higher volume of patients and demand more research than Level II centers. The level of care offered at a Level I and Level II trauma center is equal.
Some doctors and administrators at other Boston-area hospitals took issue with Tufts' bid quest for trauma center status, arguing that the new arrangement would reduce patient flow to nearby centers. This would compromise the ability of hospital staff to maintain their high-quality clinical skills, they told the Daily in September.
Opponents also argued that Tufts' transition to the status of a Level II institution would impose unnecessary costs on its patrons.
But Tufts' administrators contend that the venture will not prove overly expensive, maintaining that the hospital has most of the necessary equipment already, thanks to the center's Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center.
The Floating Hospital for Children was the first Level I pediatric trauma center in the country, Brien Barnewolt, the medical center's emergency physician-in-chief, told the Daily in September. That designation requires the hospital to be outfitted with advanced, up-to-date technology.
"It wasn't that much of a leap to become a little more organized with a trauma designation," Barnewolt said. "We debated internally, and ultimately the decision was made to elevate the standard of care for the patients that we have always taken care of."
The medical center originally applied for Level II adult trauma center status in August with the American College of Surgeons. The state Department of Public Health followed with its own endorsement after the American College of Surgeons approved Tufts' bid.
