| From the Charleston Gazette www.wvgazette.com
Tuesday October 1, 2002
By Joy Davia
Staff Writer
If Charleston Area Medical Center trauma
doctors want medical malpractice coverage
from the state, they will have to attend
more quality-improvement meetings than
they have done in the past, a state official
said Monday.
"For them to get special insurance
coverage, they have to do things that are
required of a level I trauma center," said
Dr. Bill Ramsey, medical director of the
state Office of Emergency Medical
Services.
CAMC lost its top-ranked trauma center
Aug. 27 because it didn't have enough bone
surgeons to staff the center 24 hours a day.
And not enough of the hospital's trauma
staff â including urologists, bone surgeons,
plastic surgeons and neurosurgeons, among
others â attended the meetings, which are mandated by the
American College of Surgeons.
Today, CAMC will return to a level I center. Bone surgeons had
returned to the trauma center because they could get coverage
from the state Board of Risk and Insurance Management, the
Wise administration would push for a cap on lawsuit damages
against trauma doctors, among other promises.
But to get the insurance, more than 50 percent of a hospital's
trauma staff has to attend the "performance improvement"
meetings, where doctors work to improve their response times and
quality of care, among other issues. This is one of 18 criteria set
by the national surgical association.
"This was put in as a condition of the contract," Ramsey said.
Dr. Frank Lucente, chief of staff and medical director of the
trauma center, has said trauma doctors were too strapped to
attend the meetings. There aren't enough of them to do their job,
so they're too busy to attend meetings, he said.
CAMC's orthopedic trauma surgeons can immediately apply for
the BRIM coverage. So can CAMC's other trauma specialists,
although they may not get coverage for their nontrauma patients,
Ramsey added. Doctors at level I and level II centers in
Huntington, Charleston and Morgantown are eligible for the
insurance.
A task group headed by Ramsey will look at other trauma issues,
including how patients are referred to hospitals and how to fund a
statewide system. Gov. Bob Wise will appoint members to the
committee.
"This is just beginning," Ramsey said. "We're going to look at the
whole system, the whole state, how we're going to support all the
centers and not just one," he said. "The CAMC solution may be
used to develop a bigger plan."
A level I and level II trauma center must have specialists like bone
surgeons on-call 24 hours a day. A level II center doesn't do the
research of a level I. For more than a month, CAMC was a level
III center, which means they just had to have a general surgeon
within 15 minutes of the hospital at all times.
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