The troubling economic environment led several hospitals across the country to shutter their trauma programs. “But our primary driver was the "to heal' portion of (our mission).” Trauma, historically, had been a money-losing venture for hospitals, particularly those in urban strongholds that catered to large groups of uninsured and Medicaid patients. “Will we make money on trauma? We hope we will,” Dziedzicki said. UH officials stress that money was not the motivating factor, though the system explored the financial viability of a trauma program as part of its due diligence. William Schwab, a trauma surgeon from the University of Pennsylvania. Michael Anderson, UH's chief medical officer, last month described the East Side as having an “anemic trauma presence.” UH is cognizant that opening a trauma center could enhance the hospital's revenue base, as was noted in a 2011 feasibility study prepared for UH by Dr. Brendan Patterson, a MetroHealth orthopedic surgeon and a former NOTS head, argued in a strongly worded op-ed in Crain's that UH is “willing to put the existing system of trauma care at risk for an institutional objective.”However, UH officials counter by saying it simply takes too long for EMS drivers to travel to and from certain East Side municipalities and MetroHealth's main campus on West 25th Street. UH's critics quickly point to the money angle as the motivation for opening another Level 1 center. We are completing a more comprehensive program that spans all generations.” It's not like we're entering into a venue we have not been in at our institution. “That's been lost in some of this fog of war. “It completes a program at UH,” said Ronald Dziedzicki, Case Medical Center's chief operating officer. As UH sees it, it's one of the final puzzle pieces - and not one placed lightly - as the health system had long offered Level 1 trauma services in the pediatrics arena. All the while, the health system has had no other choice but to transfer its most-critical patients suffering from traumatic injuries to competing hospitals. It's added a handful of community hospitals to its portfolio, allowing itself to transform from an East Side-centric provider into a truly regional health care powerhouse armed to compete with the rivaling Clinic. Over the last five years or so, the UH enterprise has grown considerably. It also is expected to help the system better recruit docs, elevate the quality of its other services and, perhaps, even boost the bottom line. The move also appears to be the logical next step in UH's bold quest to be the dominant health care provider in Northeast Ohio. The state of Ohio, like most states, doesn't regulate the number of top-tier trauma centers in a geographic area. But despite that back and forth, there likely won't be any stopping UH's effort to launch its own Level 1 center at Case Medical Center. Conversely, backers of the Northern Ohio Trauma System, or NOTS - a Clinic and MetroHealth-led regional trauma network, which UH declined to join - characterize the move as a money-driven power play. On one side, the move has been warmly embraced by public officials, particularly those on the East Side of the city who felt there's been a trauma desert of sorts since Cleveland Clinic shuttered its money-losing Huron Hospital in East Cleveland. University Hospitals' recent announcement that it plans to launch its own Level 1 trauma center has catalyzed a communitywide debate over whether another costly center was needed, especially when Greater Cleveland has been well served - at least as the hospital's backers see it - by MetroHealth Medical Center.
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