SPRING 2019

The Healthcare Foundation awards millions of dollars in grants each year to fund essential medical equipment, renovations, education and training, and program upgrades. Thanks to more than $1 million raised during the 2018 Hospital Gala for emergency and trauma services, the Healthcare Foundation was able to purchase new state-of-the-art lifesaving equipment.

Since the trauma program’s inception in 2015, its medical team has cared for more than 10,000 patients—over 3,400 each year. To accommodate the growing demand for services, the Trauma Progressive Care Unit/Trauma Step-Down Unit has expanded. The new equipment will help provide a higher level of care to more patients than ever before.

Foundation grants have funded the following equipment:

• Bronchoscopes, video towers and storage cabinets enabling the trauma team to quickly visualize and open patients’ airways. With the additional bronchoscopes, medical staff in the ECC and Trauma ICU will be able to perform procedures such as bronchoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage, and percutaneous tracheostomy to clear patients’ airways of blood and other debris caused by traumatic injuries or pneumonia. A bronchoscope tower will also be used to treat facial injuries.
• Transport monitors that allow providers to safely move a greater number of trauma and ECC patients around the hospital. These monitors track breathing, temperature, blood pressure and other vital signs during transport, and they have alarm settings that can be stored and tailored to each individual patient.
• Level 1 rapid infusers that quickly infuse a large volume of fluids or blood into the most critically ill or seriously injured patients, dramatically increasing their likelihood of survival. With the help of these infusers, the trauma team can keep patients alive until their bleeding has stopped.
• Blanket warmers to keep patients warm and prevent complications such as hypothermia.

Alan Brockhurst, M.D., FACS, Trauma Medical Director, SMHCS, said, “We thank our donors for helping our team provide the community with this imperative service.”

Jennifer Sweeney, DND, CEN, TCRN, Trauma Program Manager, SMHCS, said, “Often we would have to share equipment – moving it from room to room as it was needed. This new equipment expanded our ability to handle mass-casualty cases.”