A patient came into the emergency center with severe trauma. Despite the severity of the patient’s injuries, it took almost three hours for that patient to receive the transport necessary to the top-level trauma center. Ballad Health says it wants to reduce instances of this lack of communication, if not outright eliminate it.

CEO Alan Levine held a press conference Wednesday morning in Johnson City to discuss his plan for a coordinated trauma care system, one that he said would be more efficient and provide more high-quality care to the people of East Tennessee.

Currently, two high-level trauma centers exist unusually close to one another: one in Johnson City and the other in Kingsport. Levine said this creates an overlap of resources that causes an expensive redundancy.

“We have two level one trauma centers,” he said. “This means we have to have multiple of everything.”

The “everything” includes trained personnel, equipment and more. Because the two of them are so close, however, he said their populations are not as high as they would need to be to justify the cost.

Levine said the new trauma system will work to streamline the process, making sure patients get the care they need as quickly as possible.

He said all three trauma centers will remain open, and no services or jobs will be lost.

“The idea is to integrate highly skilled trauma experts with EMS and other services to ensure rapid transport,” Levine said.

He said the vast majority of trauma patients will still go to their local emergency center first. The most serious 10 percent of trauma patients, however, will go to Johnson City Medical Center, as opposed to the 60 percent of trauma patients who go there now.

Under the new system, EMS will be better able to both identify which patients require the specialized services of a dedicated trauma center and determine the best way to transport the patients.

Levine said he hopes the new trauma system will ensure all three centers operate as efficiently and productively as possible while still dedicating themselves to serving the community.

“Hospitals in the most competitive markets are having the most financial problems,” Levine said. “Ours have been having issues for years.”

A press release from Ballad Health says they plan to launch the new program in mid-2019, and development on the specifics started the day of the press conference.

In addition to trauma care, Ballad also announced the development of the region’s only pediatric trauma, as well as plans to incorporate counselors in schools to better identify children who need the help and support.

Levine said Ballad hopes the new trauma system will link together what is currently a group of independent trauma centers, hopefully expanding on the region’s capabilities to assist patients who need it.

“The limiting factor has always been communication,” Levine said. “We plan to become a national leader on this.”