I've often written about the importance of a mature trauma system and how it's important to the rural/tribal areas of Arizona for better access to care for injured patients. Since my last blog on trauma, we've welcomed Banner Del Webb Medical Center, Payson Regional Medical Center, Mt. Graham Medical Center, and Yavapai Regional Medical Center as Level [...]
Over the past month we have been looking at some different ways to measure and describe how a trauma system is performing. In the world of performance improvement the general belief is that you have to look at a number of different measures in order to be able to describe how the system is performing. [...]
How do we evaluate Arizona’s trauma system, you ask? Good question. Over the next few weeks I’ll blog about “Trauma System Evaluation 101” as well as some of the evaluation tools we use to assess Arizona’s trauma system. The goal of any trauma system is to get the right patient to the right place in [...]
Four years ago- AZ's Trauma System was really in its infancy. We had 7 Level I (high-end) Trauma Centers… but that’s it. After 4 years and a full court press- we now have a functional statewide trauma system to help folks who get injured outside the metropolitan areas that includes 31 trauma centers including 16 of the [...]
Today marks the beginning of an historic arrangement between Arizona and the Republic of Korea to improve Trauma care. The Korea Arizona Trauma Summit began this morning with Arizona’s Governor welcoming the National Assembly Representative of the Democratic Party of Korea and the Minister of Health and Welfare. The Korean group includes several trauma surgeons [...]
This is one to remember. SBIRT is an acronym for a behavioral health intervention that stands for “Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment”. The technical definition is “ … a comprehensive, integrated, public health approach to the delivery of early intervention and treatment services for persons with substance use disorders…” A more metaphorical (is that [...]
Kudos to our EMS and Trauma System team for forging some new tools to improve trauma care in AZ. Our Data and Quality Assurance team developed an innovative benchmarking tool that’s shared with each of AZ’s trauma centers. The tool shows each facility their injury specific survival rates and compares those rates to the (blinded) other [...]
One of our Department priorities over the last few years has been to improve Arizona’s Trauma System. We know we can dramatically improve service and reduce costs by developing a coordinated and integrated system of trauma care for the entire state. More than 24,000 people are severely injured (called trauma) every year in Arizona, and [...]
Trauma remains a big problem in Arizona; it’s the leading cause of death for folks under 44 and nearly 27,000 people suffered injuries severe enough to be cared for in trauma centers in 2009. We’ve been working hard over the last few years to recruit new rural hospitals into the trauma system as Level IV [...]
Did you know that we issue nearly 20,000 licenses every year- on everything from hospitals to childcare centers, midwives, trauma centers and sanitarians? We’re required to have meet certain time-frames for each license or approval the Department issues- and we issue a lot of licenses. If we don’t process the license within the timeframe, we’re [...]
