“I thank HealthAlliance and the WMCHealth workforce for recognizing this vital healthcare need and establishing our first NYS-designated trauma center in Ulster County, significantly bringing trauma care closer to home for our residents,” stated a congratulatory release from local state senator Michelle Hinchey.
Health Alliance Hospital in Kingston was celebrating its newly awarded designation as a provisional Level III adult trauma center. The hospital had received acknowledgement from the state Department of Health for what it had filed to receive because of what it already was.
The hospital has been an important part of the trauma system in the Hudson Valley since it opened in December 2022.
According to “Resources for the Optimal Care of the Injured Patient,” a set of standards released by the American College of Surgeons (ACS), a Level III trauma center must possess the capability to initially manage the majority of injured patients and have transfer agreements with Level I or II trauma centers for more seriously injured patients whose needs exceeded the facility’s resources.
Such an agreement is demonstrated every time a medevac helicopter buzzes the neighborhoods surrounding the Montrepose Cemetery and the Wiltwyck Golf Course. It’s the sound of patients requiring a higher level of care being spirited away.
WMCHealth’s network of trauma centers in the Hudson Valley can boast a Level II trauma center in Poughkeepsie (MidHudson Regional Hospital) and the only Level 1 trauma center in the Hudson Valley at Valhalla (Westchester Medical Center). The network also operates the advanced care pediatric trauma center Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital adjacent to the Westchester Medical Center.
Essentially, no services have changed — which is a relief after last month’s week of ambulance diversions to surrounding hospitals in the wake of a cyber attack/
The ‘designation’ the hospital has received is different from a ‘verification,’ a lengthier process whose verdict is doled out by the ACS.
Open less than a year, Health Alliance has not yet and could not have been verified in the manner prescribed in the Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient to include examinations of commitment, readiness, resources, policies, patient care and performance improvement. The hospital will surely undergo that three-year voluntary process in the future.
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