Florida Senate plan would clear way for trauma centers

A Senate committee Thursday approved proposals that could make it easier to open new hospital trauma centers ? and assure that some disputed trauma centers would remain open.

JIM SAUNDERS, THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Plunging into a debate about Florida?s trauma system, a Senate committee Thursday approved proposals that could make it easier to open new hospital trauma centers ? and assure that some disputed trauma centers would remain open.

The Senate Appropriations Committee took up a health-care bill (SB 966) and made changes that could help fast-track new trauma centers in four regions of the state and also protect trauma centers that have been embroiled in a series of legal challenges.

Bill sponsor Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, said lawmakers are trying to make sure people have access to trauma care within what he called the ?golden hour? after accidents.

?Are you within the golden hour to make it alive to a hospital??? he asked.

But the proposals, which popped up as part of a 128-page amendment to the bill and two subsequent amendments, drew criticism from teaching hospitals and safety-net hospitals that provide trauma care. Mark Delegal, a lobbyist for the Teaching Hospital Council of Florida, said the proposals had not been considered by health-care committees that ordinarily would debate such ideas.

?This is the kind of stuff that those of us who work in this process should not do,?? Delegal said.

The move by the Appropriations Committee came two days after a House panel also approved a bill to overhaul the way trauma centers are approved. But the Senate version appears to be more far-reaching.

In part, it would create a special approval process for trauma centers in four regions that it describes as having ?limited access to trauma care services.? As an example, one of those regions is in the western Panhandle, where Fort Walton Beach Medical Center has been trying to get approval to open a trauma center.

Source: http://feeds.bizjournals.com/~r/bizj_jacksonville/~3/2vGoe7nPYVg/florida-senate-plan-would-clear-way.html

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