Sunrise to add trauma services

Molly Ball

Friday, Dec. 10, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

Sunrise Hospital is gearing up to start accepting trauma patients in the coming month, putting it on the path to be the Las Vegas Valley's second full-service center for people who have been seriously injured, according to a spokesperson.

"We anticipate coming online in January," Sunrise spokeswoman Amy Dirks Stevens said on Thursday.

Ambulance routes will have to be redrawn to accommodate the new service, she noted.

Stevens said county projections that predict Sunrise will treat about 530 trauma patients in 2005 are accurate.

Sunrise's opening of its trauma services will mark the culmination, at least in part, of what had been a bitter dispute between county and state health authorities over how new trauma centers should be put in place.

Although everybody involved agreed that fast-growing Clark County would eventually need more services for the gravely injured, the county wanted to create new centers -- which include special equipment and are staffed around the clock by medical specialists -- according to a deliberate plan that took local feedback into account.

But in July, the state Health Division agreed to provisionally license the hospital once Sunrise officials could show the hospital had adequate trauma personnel, before the county could finish its planning process, incensing members of the county Health Board who felt they'd been cut out.

But now, the county has accepted that decision and moved on, said Rory Chetelat, the county's emergency services manager.

"While we feel somewhat under the gun to meet the deadlines set by the state, we think we're ready," he said.

Sunrise's provisional license begins Jan. 1, but it would be at least Jan. 15 before ambulance drivers would be ready to change their routes, Chetelat said.

The county has continued its planning toward development of a coherent strategy for handling trauma patients in the hopes that the state will consult the county next time there is a decision to be made.

Chetelat said the county's chief health officer, Dr. Donald Kwalick, "has given me the task to go ahead and develop a trauma system, whether we have the statutory authority or not."

A county advisory committee has asked the state Health Board to make an exception to the statute that requires ambulances to take trauma victims to a trauma center that is within 30 minutes' drive, noting that when Sunrise starts its operation, there will be two centers within 30 minutes of each other.

At its meeting on Monday, the state board is slated to vote on the proposed exception, which would allow the county to carve Clark County into "catchment areas" for the various trauma centers.

The exception is recommended for approval.

One map of possible catchment areas would have Sunrise taking patients from an area of southeast Las Vegas bounded by Sahara Avenue on the north; Paradise Road, Sunset Road and Boulder Highway on the west; and the southern border of Henderson.

St. Rose Dominican Hospital, which hopes to open a lower-level trauma center at its Siena campus in Henderson, would have its own catchment area, taking in most of Henderson. It will register about 300 trauma patients in 2005, according to the projections.

St. Rose spokeswoman Mandy Abrams said the hospital would file its license application today and hoped to start accepting patients in March or April.

The proposed map leaves the rest of Clark County to University Medical Center, the only trauma center currently operating, and projects that UMC would take 3,400 trauma patients.

UMC believes the proposed boundaries are acceptable and won't siphon away too much of the trauma load, spokeswoman Cheryl Persinger said, "but we'll have to see how everything fits together. As the valley grows, (the boundaries) could be redefined."

From Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, UMC registered 3,534 trauma patients, according to Persinger.

In drawing the ambulance boundaries, the county, with input from the hospitals, wants to make sure Sunrise's new operation is financially viable while also ensuring UMC is not damaged, Chetelat said.

But eventually, he said, the lines could be erased and ambulance drivers would make decisions about which hospital to go to based on their own judgment of factors such as routes and traffic conditions.