On its second try, Northwest Medical Center in Springdale passed a site evaluation by state health officials and will join Arkansas’ trauma system as a Level III center.
Arkansas Department of Health officials confirmed the hospital passed its second site visit, conducted July 10, after the hospital sent out a news release.
The Health Department acknowledged it had notified the Springdale hospital April 20, 2012, that it had failed its first site review to receive a Level III designation because of “several deficiencies.” Department officials declined then to provide specifics, saying a state law concerning trauma data collection prevented it.
“We received our designation with no deficiencies,” the Springdale hospital’s spokesman, Pat Driscoll, said in a news release Monday.
Health Department officials wouldn’t confirm that, saying only that Northwest Medical Center-Springdale had received a “full” designation, rather than a provisional designation that is also possible under the process.
“They came back strong,” said Bill Temple, the department’s branch chief for trauma, injury and violence prevention, adding that is as specific as he could get.
Arkansas is among the last states in the country to develop a fully operational network to coordinate injury-related medical treatment, the state has said.
In Arkansas’ system, Level I and Level II trauma centers offer similar emergency room capabilities, including having general and specialized surgeons available 24 hours a day and the ability to treat patients with the most complex injuries. However, Level I centers must also have the research, education and community outreach programs that typically go with being a teaching hospital.
Level III centers are required to have fewer specialists, and Level IV centers are required to have only a trauma-trained nurse and a physician on call.
So far, of the 78 hospitals in Arkansas and surrounding states eligible to apply for the state’s new trauma system, 71 have received their designations, Temple said. Five are Level I, five are Level II, 22 are Level III and 39 are Level IV.
The Springdale hospital is the only hospital to date that has failed a site review, Temple and other Health Department officials confirmed.
Three other hospitals that have suspended their pursuit of a trauma designation are Bradley County Medical Center in Warren, Delta Memorial Hospital in Dumas and Drew Memorial Hospital in Monticello.
“We think these hospitals may come back in at a later time,” Temple said. “They were players for a while,” he said, but were unable to meet an April 1 state deadline to undergo a site visit.
“Those three hospitals had to come off the dashboard,” he said, meaning the state’s trauma call center no longer refers calls to them using its computer dashboard that determines which hospitals are best positioned to take a trauma case.
The hospitals didn’t have to return their seed-money grants, he said. “But the consequences of going off the dashboard include that they’re not eligible for any sustaining money,” he said.
Wadley Regional Medical Center in Hope will be required to have another site evaluation because of new ownership and a new name, Temple said. It was first designated as a Level IV center after a Feb. 29, 2012, review, said Margaret Holaway, trauma nurse coordinator for the system’s northwest, north-central and southeast regions.
Of the 71 designated centers, 21 received only provisional designation initially, Holaway said. She estimated that all but a half-dozen came back later and successfully demonstrated to the state their readiness to become fully designated centers.
A site visit can have just three results, Temple said: full designation, provisional designation, or failure to pass.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/30/2013