Trauma Medical Director's Introduction

Twenty years ago, the University of Tennessee Medical Center was designated a Level I Trauma Center (the highest level) as the Tennessee trauma system was born. Since that time, we have never closed our doors to the severely injured patient. More than 56,000 severely injured patients have been cared for by our trauma teams—physicians, nurses, techs, and many other providers who are in-house 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is important to realize that in the United States, fewer than 10% of hospitals have a trauma center. In Tennessee, there are only six Level I Trauma Centers serving the whole state.

This system, which was designed to get the right patient to the right place at the right time, has served injured patients well. It also provides hospitals available resources to deal with other non-traumatic emergencies (such as strokes, heart attacks, or ruptured aneurysms in a timely fashion at all hours of the day. Trauma c enters serve as an essential safety net for the whole healthcare system.

However, this system has become stretched thin as more and more providers and other hospitals are unable or unwilling to provide care for certain problems or at certain times and are sending those patients to the trauma centers. Other issues threatening trauma centers include increasing costs of preparedness—the cost of being available 24 hours a day—along with inadequate reimbursement for providing trauma care. Since the year 2000, at least 19 trauma centers across the United States have been forced to close their doors.

These issues are being addressed, both by the state of Tennessee, and at the federal level. Much work remains to keep the system viable and we need your help. We hope that you will read this report to better understand what it means to be a trauma center, meet some of the people who are here every hour of every day to care for injured patients, and to think about what would happen if the trauma center was not here. Please help the Trauma Center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center celebrate its 20th birthday. With your help and support, we will celebrate many more and continue to provide this essential service for the citizens of East Tennessee.

Read the full report.

Thank you,

Blaine L. Enderson, MD, MBA, FACS, FCCM
Professor of Surgery and Chief
Division of Trauma/Critical Care
General Surgery, Trauma and Critical Care