ATLANTA (Jan. 4, 2019) – The trauma center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Egleston Hospital has been verified as a Level 1 Trauma Center by the Verification Review Committee (VRC), an ad-hoc committee of the Committee on Trauma (COT) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). The three-year verification means Egleston Hospital is now the first and only ACS-verified level 1 pediatric trauma center in Georgia. This achievement recognizes a hospital’s dedication to providing optimal care for injured patients.
Established by the American College of Surgeons in 1987, the COT Consultation/Verification Program for Hospitals promotes the development of trauma centers in which participants provide not only the hospital resources necessary for trauma care, but also the entire spectrum of care to address the needs of all injured patients. This spectrum encompasses the prehospital phase through the rehabilitation process.
“I’m extremely proud of this ACS designation, which recognizes the remarkable work taking place at Egleston Hospital to treat and prevent pediatric trauma, the No. 1 cause of death in children,” said Rana Roberts, Director of Trauma and Transport at Children's. “This is a verification of the outstanding efforts of our dedicated trauma teams and the services they provide for families in our community and state.”
Verified trauma centers must meet the essential criteria that help ensure trauma care capability and institutional performance, as outlined by the American College of Surgeons' Committee on Trauma in its current Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient manual.
The ACS Committee on Trauma's verification program does not designate trauma centers. Rather, the program provides confirmation that a trauma center has demonstrated its commitment to providing the highest quality trauma care for all injured patients. The actual establishment and designation of trauma centers is the function of local, regional or state healthcare systems agencies, such as the local emergency medical services (EMS) authority.
There are five separate categories of verification in the COT program. Each category has specific criteria that must be met by a facility seeking that level of verification. Each hospital has an onsite review by a team of experienced site reviewers, who use the current Resources for the Optimal Care of the Injured Patient manual as a guideline in conducting the survey.
The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational association of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical education and practice, and to improve the care of the surgical patient. ACS has more than 72,000 members and it is the largest association of surgeons in the world. Longstanding achievements have placed the ACS on the forefront of American surgery and have made it an important advocate for all surgical patients.
In 2017, Children’s managed 233,184 Emergency Department visits across the system. More than 22,000 children visited Children’s Emergency Departments for trauma care, and Children’s treated about 60% of all pediatric trauma patients in Georgia.