New Iowa trauma system should help speed hospital treatment

With the start of the new year came a new way to treat people who are seriously injured in Iowa. The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is helping coordinate a statewide trauma care system. Organizers say the goal is to provide optimum care for patients who need emergency treatment.Dr. Andrew Nugent is interim director of the Emergency Treatment Center at the U-of-I Hospitals. He says the new system aims to save lives by moving people who are injured in a rural area from the local hospital directly to a hospital where the top tier of treatment can be provided.He says in the past, it wasn’t unusual for someone who’d been seriously hurt to be transferred to three or four hospitals over ten or 12 hours. Dr. Nugent says Iowa needed this streamlined type of a trauma care system because of the state’s sparse and spread out population.Nugent says the system is designed to organize personnel, facilities and equipment in order to provide efficient and effective care. He says it could also cut medical costs.