Georgia lawmakers want to revamp the state's trauma system because of statistics that show Georgia's trauma death rate as being 20 percent higher than the national average. Currently, injured patients waste valuable time waiting to be transferred as the overtaxed hospitals search for a facility that can treat them. The high cost of operating a trauma center often makes it a losing proposition for hospitals; The state has only 15 centers, about half of what it needs to serve the population. "A trauma network would provide a central command center for all of the state's trauma hospitals and electronically connect the hospitals to ensure that injured patients are sent to the right facility as soon as possible," the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. The new network would cost between $70 million and $80 million to build and operate but lawmakers hope to pay for the system with additional revenue from traffic violations.
For more on the proposed network:
- read this Atlanta Business Chronicle Article