Trauma Care

Providing the Best Care for our Patients

As the first designated Level I trauma center in Pennsylvania and the busiest trauma program in the Commonwealth, Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network’s Trauma Center strives for continuous performance improvement in the care of our patients. Our Trauma Center serves patients from the eight counties surrounding our hospital in northeastern Pennsylvania with a population of approximately 2 million people and is the only one in our region with additional qualifications in pediatric trauma.

Our performance improvement mission is to develop an outcome-based data collection system that will ultimately improve the care delivered to critically injured patients.

The goals of our process improvement efforts include:

• Identify and focus on outcomes of our care processes
• Record data on our patient care and share our outcomes data with other trauma centers so that we can all improve the care
• Develop and maintain a standard data base that will identify factors that impact the outcomes selected and allow for modification depending on the outcomes realized and use of new technology

This shared focus on quality for our trauma program and Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network as an entity brings results, the most recent recognition including:

• National Quality Award
• Magnet Status for Nursing
• National Respiratory Care Award
• MICU/SICU ranked 11th in the nation
• Implementation of CAPOE (computer-assisted physician order entry), paperless patient rounds
• A commitment of ongoing clinical research and education

The Trauma Team

A key reason for our high quality of care is the involvement of an entire team of health care gives providing patient care and focusing on continuous improvement. Clearly, the shared commitment and collegiality of these professionals ensures our effectiveness as caregivers, researchers and teachers.

These team members are:

• trauma physicians
• Trauma nurse coordinators
• Nurse director and administrator
• Patient care specialist
• Nursing staff from the ER and trauma inpatient units
• Pastoral care representative
• Staff from rehabilitation and social work
• Staff from the trauma program development office
• Trauma Program Milestones

The Trauma Center is on the move! Over the past three years alone, the Trauma Center has achieved many advancements, which contribute to improved quality, access and care of trauma patients, all while our volumes continue to rise. Here is a sample of our achievements:

• We attained Adult Accreditation for Regional Level I Trauma Center.
• We successfully completed Trauma Site Survey to achieve Additional Qualifications in Pediatric trauma.
• We established a Section of Geriatric Trauma.
• Implemented a Core Trauma Nursing program in the emergency department.
• Maintained improvements in nursing assessment and documentation of all trauma patients in the emergency department.
• Received a Safe Kids Coalition Grant to build and maintain a Safety Town, a miniature town that will send safety messages to school-aged children.
• Implemented the Pennsylvania Outcomes and Performance Improvement Measurement System database for the improvement of quality improvement analysis and documentation.
• Held a Trauma Retreat, which resulted in six work groups developing action plans.
• Continue presenting numerous trauma prevention programs in the community, at kids’ fairs, community family events and fall prevention programs for the elderly.
• Educated trauma care providers to care for the emotional needs of trauma patients’ families through the Second Trauma Workshop.

For more information about LVHHN’s Trauma Center, please call 610-402-8434.

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