Hospital gains trauma certification

By Frances Vanderploeg

Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008 | midnight

St. Rose Dominican Hospitals-Siena Campus has successfully completed verification as a Level 3 trauma center, making it the only one in Nevada, hospital officials said.

Trauma treatment can occur anywhere in the hospital, including the emergency room or intensive care unit, Kim Dokken, registered nurse and trauma program manager, said.

St. Rose's Siena Campus is one of four hospitals in the state with trauma centers certified by the American College of Surgeons. University Medical Center has both a Level 1 and Level 2 trauma center, and Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center has a Level 2. Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno also has a Level 2 trauma center.

The hospitals work together to make sure each center doesn't get overloaded, Dokken said.

"We're watching out for each other, but making sure the patient is at the forefront," she said.

Every three years after the initial application, the trauma centers are required to apply for verification, which ensures the doctors and nurses are continuing their education and maintaining a high quality of care.

St. Rose Dominican-Siena Campus was asked to apply to be a Level 3 trauma center by administrators at University Medical Center, to provide relief when necessary, Dokken said.

Sometimes patients are too sick to transfer to a higher-level trauma center, so each center has to be prepared to handle whatever may come in the door.

Dokken gave the example of a recent patient who came in with a gunshot wound in his head. Because he was bleeding so much, his system had gone into shock, she said.

"There was no blood in his heart," she said.

They hooked him up to two machines that are meant to rapidly pump fluids into a person's body, ensuring blood moved back into his system.

"We saved his life because of it," Dokken said.

Extreme cases such as that may not be what they expect to see, she said, but the staff has to be capable of taking care of any patient. Sometimes a patient is too sick to move to a higher-level trauma center, so the care must come from Siena.

Though the hospital could work toward receiving a higher-level trauma rating, Dokken said, it is not necessarily in its best interest to do so. Ideally, each area should have a variety of trauma centers, with only one at the highest level, she said, to keep patients distributed evenly.

Frances Vanderploeg can be reached at 990-2660 or [email protected].