The long-running debate over trauma centers moves closer the battles in the courts and the Florida legislature, even as the Department of Health prepares another strategy on how to allocate services statewide.
In a Tuesday hearing, the DOH offered a new proposal, an attempt to find an equitable allowable number of trauma centers among the 19 different regions of Florida. The hearing is the latest in the hospital-industry squabble over centers in Pasco, Manatee, Clay and Marion counties that date back to department decisions in 2011 and 2012, reports Jim Saunders of the News Service of Florida.
After a ruling by both an appeals court and administrative law judge finding the DOH used an invalid rule when allowing trauma centers to begin at Pasco County’s Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, Blake Medical Center in Manatee County and the Ocala Regional Medical Center in Marion County. Another facility in Orange Park Medical Center in Clay County had closed for unrelated reasons. Subsequent litigation is ongoing.
Even as the issue makes its way through the courts, the DOH continues to develop new rules to determine where to put trauma centers, but the result of Tuesday’s meeting seems to be more legal challenges, Saunders writes.
HCA Health Care, which operates the disputed trauma centers in Clay, Marion, Pasco and Manatee counties, urged the DOH during the meeting to proceed with the rule, supported by officials from the Kissimmee region. The rule would help open a facility at HCA’s Osceola Regional Medical Center.
But the plan also drew opposition from Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida, which operates public and teaching hospitals with prevailing trauma centers, including Tampa General Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, St. Petersburg’s Bayfront Medical Center UF Health Jacksonville and UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville.
Opponents maintain the rules do not adequately set standards for determining the need for additional trauma centers in certain areas of the state. They claim the facilities have high operational costs and require specialized and highly trained staff.
The proposed rule also includes many of same the mistakes of the earlier trauma, which resulted in the rule declared invalid in court, according to UF Health Shands Hospital attorney Seann Frazier, who called it “disappointing.” Frazier represents Gainesville hospital in the challenge to the Ocala Regional Medical Center trauma facility.
“This (proposed) rule would allow for proliferation of unneeded trauma programs because it doesn’t properly predict need,” Frazier told the News Service.
HCA’s next step could be to try to get legislation introduced in the 2014 legislative session beginning next week, which would solve the disputes about trauma centers currently in operation, as well as future facilities.
At the end of the 2013 session, lobbyists went back and forth on the issue, with lawmakers only approving rather limited changes.
