In September 2009, Blake filed a letter of intent with the state, indicating our commitment to building a trauma program.

Brian Kimbrell, MD joined us in August of 2010. Dr. Kimbrell came to us from St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, California where he served as the trauma medical director and surgical critical care coordinator. Since joining the team, he has been spearheading a wide range of efforts for this $2.5 million project, including recruiting, developing trauma protocols, construction planning, and training staff.

In April 2010 Blake submitted an initial application with a request for an extension, which the state granted. This extension period allows us to build all of the required components of a state designated trauma program.

It’s not enough to work toward bringing current best practices for trauma care to our community. We want to improve the care of trauma patients across Florida by establishing new best practices. In November of 2010, Blake and four other HCA Hospitals in Florida partnered with USF Health, a division of the University of South Florida to create a statewide trauma network to advance the study and practice of trauma care for all.

Like all aspects of our care, we will focus on quality and performance improvement measurement and processes. Experts stress that at the core of every successful Trauma Services Program is a very robust Quality and Risk Management Program. This program focuses on all aspects of care that is provided by each specialty of the multidisciplinary team. Our Quality & Performance Improvement Process for trauma has been developed and is in place awaiting designation and the receipt of trauma patients.

Early on in our planning we met (and continue to meet) with key partners like Manatee County EMS, and Bayflite to ensure that we’ve thought of everything in planning for the transportation and receiving of patients(including discussing potential neighborhood impact such as flight paths and ambulance traffic down main roads to preserve the tranquility of our nearby communities.)

Lynne Grief, PhD, RN joined our team as the VP of Trauma Services in December of 2011. Her career has focused on the care of the Emergency Department patient—in clinical, educational, and administrative roles. She has many years of experience in Level I and Level II trauma centers.

We’ve also hired a Trauma Registrar to track every trauma patient we will receive; 5 new ER Nurses; 6 new OR Nurses and Techs; and 4 Trauma Surgeons.

Trauma training for staff began January 2011 and as of August 1^st 2011, our staff completed more than 1500 hours of training. Although this is just the first phase of training, we have already exceeded state regulations in the number of hours completed per person. The state requires between 4 - 16 hours of training every two years, depending on the area of practice. To date our staff has between 15-104 hours of education. Some of the recommended education includes TNCC (www.ena.org), PALS (www.heart.org), ATCN, (www.traumanurses.org) for staff working in the ICU, ER, Surgery, Neuro, PACU, and Rehab. In addition to these courses, monthly lectures featuring a variety of trauma experts and open Q&A have been held since February 2011 and will continue to be available to physicians, staff, and EMS. Videos of these lectures are available to staff to view at their convenience if they’re unable to attend.

In June of 2011 we began construction of two trauma resuscitation rooms which are connected by a central trauma command center within the ER at Blake. Construction was completed by July, 2011 and the rooms are currently being utilized for patient care as well as training purposes for staff.

We completed construction of a ramp from our existing helipad into the new trauma area in August of 2011. In addition, we designated and fenced off a second helicopter landing (parking) zone in our parking lot. This space will be used to park the initial helicopter, should there ever be a need for a second helicopter to land with a second patient.

In addition to the extensive training already completed, staff training sessions continue with live model patients, hands-on experience, and classroom style discussions with trauma experts. Mock trauma scenarios began in August 2011 and other training, such as simulation labs and one-on-one instruction continues to be available.

We plan to submit our final application to the state by October 1, 2011. We anticipate receiving Provisional Level II Trauma Center designation later this Fall.

No trauma center is located within our Manatee, Sarasota and Desoto County Trauma Region which results in trauma patients being transported north to St. Petersburg or Tampa, east to Lakeland or south to Lee County.

This is less than ideal for two important reasons. The first is time, which is absolutely critical in traumatically injured patients, where minutes can be the difference between life and death. The second is the hardship placed on the family, who must travel great distances to visit traumatically injured patients.

Formalization of our care to critically injured patients into a designated Provisional Level II Trauma Center will continue to improve the quality of care for all of the patients that we serve, much like our focused efforts regarding Stroke and STEMI Alerts have done for those patients.

Fortunately, patients at Blake already benefit from the advanced education given to our staff in preparation for trauma. This benefit will only increase as more and more training is completed leading up to and beyond designation as a Provisional Level II Trauma Center.

An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, January 26, 2006, titled A National Evaluation of the Effect of Trauma‐Center Care on Mortality documents a 25% reduction in the case mix adjusted mortality rate for trauma patients when treated at trauma centers compared to care at non‐trauma centers.

Trauma Service Area 13, with its elderly demographics, offers Blake and partner USF Health, some unique opportunities to improve trauma care. The Area was ranked as having the fifth highest mortality rate in the state for traumatic brain injury, seventh for falls and eighth for motor vehicle injuries, according to the March 2008 Florida trauma research report. The elderly are at a higher risk for poor outcomes in trauma due to other medical conditions present at the time of injury, and traveling great distances to be with a family member after a traumatic injury can present an especially challenging hardship.