Trenton – While New Jersey is home to some of the highest quality trauma care centers and health care professionals in the country, legislation passed out of a Senate committee would seek to further strengthen the state’s trauma care system, including efforts to enhance “field triage” decision-making, and making sure patients are transported to the hospital best able to treat their specific injuries.

The bill, S-3219, sponsored by Senator Nilsa Cruz-Perez, would require Emergency Medical Services providers in the state to adopt the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines for Field Triage of Injured Patients to ensure consistent “field triage” methods, treatment and decision-making protocols. Currently, these CDC guidelines are advisory but not mandatory.

“We need to do all we can to make sure patients are transported to the trauma center or hospital best equipped to manage their specific injuries in a timely manner, as the circumstances of injury might warrant,” said Cruz-Perez (D-Camden/Gloucester). “Our prehospital-care providers are on the front lines of our health care system. They need to be able to think on their feet, and without hesitation be able to recognize which patients need to be transported to a proper trauma center to achieve best outcomes.”

In New Jersey, unintentional injury is the leading cause of death among persons aged 15-49 and the third-leading cause among all ages combined. The National Study on the Costs and Outcomes of Trauma reported a 25 percent reduction in mortality for severely injured patients who received care at a Level 1 trauma center rather than at a non-trauma center.

The legislation would also codify the regulatory requirement for hospitals to maintain trauma patient transfer criteria and transfer agreements with trauma centers. Such criteria and agreements would be required to provide for the effective and efficient transfer of patients that require the services of a trauma center. Each hospital’s criteria and agreements would be required to be posted on the Department of Health’s website.

This bill recognizes the vital role that top-line trauma care, whether in the field or in a hospital emergency room, plays in our greater health care treatment network, and especially its place of importance in our overall public health safety net.

The bill cleared committee by a vote of 7-1.