July 11, 2003

UCSD Trauma Center Receives Level I Verification
From American College of Surgeons' Committee On Trauma

David B. Hoyt, M.D., chief of UCSD Trauma

UCSD Medical Center, Hillcrest, Trauma Center has been verified again as San Diego's Level I trauma center by the Committee on Trauma (COT) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). This achievement recognizes UCSD Trauma Center's dedication to providing optimal care for injured patients, and demonstrated exceptional competency in a wide variety of specialty areas, including teaching and research.

"We have tried to maintain this status in order to serve the community by fostering teamwork throughout the process of caring for injured patients," said David B. Hoyt, M.D., Professor and chief of Trauma, current President of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and Medical Director of Trauma for the American College of Surgeons in Chicago. "Our commitment to excellence in care, treating the next generation of providers and finding new treatments through research is what being a Level I center is all about."

Established in 1984, the UCSD Trauma Center has treated over 30,000 patients in the past 19 years, and treated almost 2,000 last year alone.

The UCSD Trauma Center continues in its longstanding rating as a Level I trauma center through many research projects, education and community efforts including:

  • Responsible for developing standards used in the Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient manual. The manual helps trauma centers meet the essential criteria that ensure trauma care capability and institutional performance.

  • Established a National Academic Center of Excellence on Youth Violence. The youth violence prevention program's focus is on creating and implementing community response plans, training health care professionals, and conducting pilot projects to evaluate effective interventions in youth violence. Working with schools, agencies and established community coalitions, the Center designs violence prevention curriculum for medical students, as well as graduate and professional students and health professionals in public health, nursing, social work and other related areas.

  • Research defining the threshold of compliance in patient trauma care, outcome assessment, and patient safety.

  • Groundbreaking leadership from physicians and nurses in trauma care including the training of more than 100 medical students, interns and residents annually.

  • Basic research science evaluating the mechanism of trauma and potential therapies such as testing artificial blood substitutes. UCSD Trauma center is one of the first centers to evaluate the use of blood substitute in the treatment of trauma patients.

  • UCSD Trauma Center coordinated with the San Diego Court System and the Corrective Behavior Institute to bring youth offenders into the UCSD Trauma Center to view first-hand the effects of injury, violence and drug or alcohol injuries.

The ACS Committee on Trauma confirms that a trauma center has demonstrated its commitment to providing the highest quality trauma care for all injured patients. Receiving verification means the UCSD Trauma Center has voluntarily met criteria that assure trauma care capability and institutional performance, by the American College of Surgeons' Committee on Trauma in its current Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient manual. The ACS is a scientific and educational association of surgeons to raise the standards of surgical education and practice and to improve the care of the surgical patient.

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News Media Contact:
Eileen Callahan
619-543-6163

UCSD Health Sciences Communications HealthBeat: http://health.ucsd.edu/news/