Trauma Center Closure Plan Sends Out Shock Waves

Huntington Memorial Hospital may have difficulty treating additional patients that could flow in as a result of the closing of a trauma center at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, officials of the Pasadena facility said Tuesday.

Los Angeles County health officials said Huntington is the closest hospital to St. Joseph in the county’s emergency services network and likely would absorb patients from St. Joseph. St. Joseph announced Monday that it will shut down its trauma center because of substantial financial losses.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen yet, but we’re at capacity right now,” said Maggie McPhillips, a Huntington spokeswoman. “We have really got our hands full. We’re going to have to see what the county is proposing before we know what’s going on.”

McPhillips said patients in Burbank and in a large section of the northeast San Fernando Valley served by St. Joseph may be too far away to be treated quickly and effectively at Huntington.

McPhillips added that the hospital is treating between 50 to 60 trauma patients a month. St. Joseph serves an average of 55 trauma patients a month.

St. Joseph officials have scheduled a news conference today to discuss the facility’s withdrawal from the county’s troubled emergency services network. St. Joseph has not officially notified the county that it intends to close the center. By law, it must give the county 60 days notice.

Virginia Price Hastings, chief of paramedics and trauma hospitals for Los Angeles County, said each hospital’s trauma care unit serves a zone. If Huntington is unable to absorb patients from St. Joseph’s area, the patients would be taken to the nearest emergency room or hospital outside the network that offers trauma care.

For instance, patients would be taken to Burbank Community Hospital or other 24-hour emergency rooms, she said.

‘Next Closest Hospital’

“When a center pulls out of the network, we have to look at the next closest hospital,” Hastings said. “We hope we can prevent a domino effect, but there will be a significant fallout because the area won’t have the services of a trauma center any longer.”

Besides Huntington, the closest trauma centers to St. Joseph in the emergency network are Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills and Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Prompted by the expected withdrawal, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to submit a plan by St. Joseph officials to the county Department of Health Services to revise criteria for participation by hospitals in the trauma network.

That change would include having physicians on call. The county requires a hospital in the emergency services network to have a neurosurgeon and other trauma-care specialists on duty 24 hours a day.

Department of Health Services officials were asked to study the plan and report back within 30 days.

Daniel H. Fahey, St. Joseph’s senior associate administrator, said the hospital would continue to provide some trauma and emergency care when the trauma center shuts down.

In a letter to employees in February, Fahey said the hospital’s financial losses resulted from “grossly inadequate reimbursement by the county” for the hospital’s participation in the trauma network. The hospital lost $1.5 million annually over the last five years on the program, officials said.