Long Beach : Hospital Leaders Invited to ‘Summit’ on Trauma Care

Long Beach Memorial Medical Center has invited representatives of 23 other area hospitals to attend a Dec. 15 “trauma summit” to discuss the future of the county’s ailing trauma care network.

“The potential is there for a crisis,” hospital spokesman Ron Yukelson said, “and we’d like to avert that crisis before it gets to the crisis point.”

Memorial is one of several hospitals to have complained recently that staying in the trauma business is becoming less and less economically feasible. Of the county’s 23 original trauma network members to be represented at the planned meeting, 10 have already dropped out of the system. And Memorial is engaged in a study of its own trauma services that recently prompted the Long Beach City Council to direct City Manager James Hankla to work with the hospital to assure that its trauma unit remains open.

“The agenda is to get everybody together,” Yukelson said of the half-day conference. “There are ways that hospitals can cut costs, become better funded and operate the entire trauma network more profitably. This is an attempt to get all those ideas on the table.”