Trauma Center in Chester County?

I recently got an e-mail from my US Representative, Jim Gerlach, discussing the need for a trauma center in Chester County. As an emergency medical services worker, I would applaud the creation and ongoing support of such a facility. Driving a patient 75 minutes by ground ambulance to a trauma center is a miserable experience. Spending the patient's "golden hour" in the back of an ambulance is not appropriate. However, having lived in far western Montgomery County and served with an ambulance squad that bordered Chester County, I know that even in the early 1990s we frequently used helicopter services to "MedEvac" patients to trauma centers. Our ground transport times to a major trauma center in Center City Philadelphia would have been about 40 minutes, hence the frequent use of helicopters.

Looking at a recent news article, the proposed cost of running a trauma center in Chester County is to be between $5 million and $8 million per year. From a purely economic standpoint, it's a no-brainer that this would be a money-losing proposition. The last trauma center in Chester County, Brandywine Hospital, closed its doors in 2002, citing financial reasons for its demise. So what has changed since 2002 that would cause a new trauma center to succeed where others have failed?

It's expected that 500 trauma patients per year would come to the proposed Chester County trauma center. At a cost of $8 million, that translates to $16,000 per trauma patient. That's a lot more than it costs to fly somebody to Center City trauma center. I acknowledge that helicopters aren't always available due to other commitments and weather. Furthermore, nationwide helicopter EMS have a spotty safety record. On a nearly-monthly basis somewhere around the country there is a report of a chopper going down.

Consider what Chestnut Hill Hospital, a small community hospital in Philadelphia near the border of Montgomery County is doing for heart patients with a specific cardiac condition: they are FLYING them to Presbyterian Medical Center in Center City. The same goes for any major trauma patient that ends up at Chestnut Hill, who possibly gets flown to a Center City trauma center. In the case of cardiac patients, the ground transport to Presbyterian Medical Center would normally be about 30 minutes. I'm actually having a hard time figuring out the finances behind this arrangement, but that discussion is for another time.