NATION’S LEAD FEDERAL AGENCY FOR RESEARCH ON HEALTH CARE ISSUE’S REPORT THAT PLACES SBUMC’S TRAUMA SERVICE IN TOP 4 PERCENT
AHRQ’s SMARTT Study Puts SBUMC at #1 in Pedestrian Trauma Survival – See more at: http://crc.informatics.stonybrook.edu/newsroom/Trauma_service_recognized#sthash.1KlBnPdu.dpuf
STONY BROOK, NY
, October 8, 2008 – The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) – the Nation’s lead Federal agency for research on health care quality, costs, outcomes, and patient safety – issued a new report entitled “Survival Measurement and Reporting Trial for Trauma (SMARTT) that puts Stony Brook University Medical Center’s Trauma Service in the top 4 percent of trauma centers nation-wide, with the lowest mortality for victims of injury.
The SMARTT study uses the American College of Surgeons’ national population-based trauma registry to set goals to improve patient outcomes. Lead by Dr. Marc J. Shapiro, Chief of General Surgery, Trauma, Critical Care and Burns, Stony Brook’s Trauma service was cited with the highest recognition of being a “very-high quality hospital” in the SMARTT report, with the lowest mortality of any hospital in the United States in treating pedestrian trauma. In addition, Stony Brook was cited as second in the US for saving “very high risk trauma.”
As the only Level I Trauma Center in Suffolk County , SBUMC receives the most critically injured patients from all points of Suffolk County, and from every community and Level II Trauma hospital in the region, including Brookhaven Hospital, Huntington Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital in Islip, Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, Southside Hospital, Southampton Hospital, and Mather Hospital and St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson.
Some of the more prominent cases that were treated by the Stony Brook University Medical Center Trauma team include Victoria Ruvolo, whose face was badly injured when a group of teens threw a frozen turkey out their car window while passing her on the roadway; Arsenio Matias, whose hands were amputated and reattached following a tragic factory accident; and, construction worker Mike Norton, who was shot through the heart with a staple gun while on the job.
“Our Level 1 trauma center has a dedicated team of staff that treat the multiply injured patient throughout their entire recovery,” says Dr. Shapiro. “This team of trained professionals and para professionals strives to return every patient to full function.”
“We also place a high priority on performance improvement and research, so this report quantifies the significance of our efforts. We enact drills, we meet weekly, and we start the discharge planning process the day our patients arrive in the hospital. This is a positive approach to recovery, and we engage family members in the process, treating them as we would treat our own.”
Funded by the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ), the goal of SMARTT is to inform governmental and other agencies of policies and practice which improve the quality of trauma care.
About the SMARTT Report & Methodology
The SMARTT outcomes report is based on the National Trauma Databank. The NTDB contains outcomes data on nearly three million patients from nearly 80% of Level I and 70% of Level II trauma centers in the United States. Stony Brook University Medical Center consistently provides data to the NTDB, and is one of approximately 125 centers selected to receive an annual report on risk-adjusted mortality and performance and therefore was compared to that of other centers included in the study. The research consortium had access to encrypted hospital identifiers and study investigators and the American College of Surgeons were blinded to the identity of each hospital in the report. The ACS was responsible for sending out the report cards but did not view the content of individual hospital report cards. All patients with trauma diagnoses are included with the exception of (1) patients younger than 1 year of age; (2) patients who are dead on arrival; (3) patients who are missing age, gender, or outcome information; (3) or patients who were transferred out to another hospital. Patients admitted with burns, late effects of injuries, or traumatic complications were excluded from the report.
About Stony Brook University Medical Center
Stony Brook University Medical Center is the only academic medical center on Long Island. It comprises Stony Brook University School of Medicine and Stony Brook University Hospital, which is the only tertiary care hospital and Level 1 trauma center in Suffolk County. With 540 beds and 5,100 employees, it is the largest hospital in Suffolk County. The Heart Center performs the only open-heart surgery in Suffolk and the Cancer Center and Cerebrovascular Center attract patients from throughout the region with cutting edge diagnostic and treatment facilities. Stony Brook is home to Long Island’s first kidney transplantation program which has performed more than 1,000 transplants, and initiated the nation’s first Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center. The hospital is also the regional referral center for trauma, perinatal and neonatal intensive care, burns, bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, cystic fibrosis, pediatric/adult AIDS, and is the regional resource center for emergency management. Stony Brook’s Stroke program is certified by the Joint Commission and the NYS Department of Health; and, Stony Brook is home to the Cody Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities and Long Island’s first comprehensive ALS Center.
