By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital’s CEO is starting the process to get the facility level three trauma center designation from the state Department of Health, MMH Chief Executive Officer Robert Wollebin said. He was speaking during Monday’s Board of Managers meeting.

That means a hospital meets certain criteria to provide life-sustaining care to critically ill or injured patients according to protocols established by New York state and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS-COT). This includes performing life-sustaining surgery, and working with emergency services personnel and level one and two centers to coordinate care and transfers when necessary. Trauma care spans the scene of an accident or medical emergency, the emergency room, the operating room, the intensive care unit, and rehabilitation. A specially trained surgeon directs trauma teams at every stage of care. The nearest level three center to Massena is Canton-Potsdam Hospital.

To start the process, MMH has to create a trauma committee and review their emergency room cases to see if they meet the standard.

“Our process is we have to get a committee together to review cases to demonstrate we have a functioning trauma committee headed by a general surgeon, who has marshaled … doctors and caregivers to review trauma cases,” Wollebin. “What’s holding them back is they have to go back and look at patients we’ve handled in the last year and give them a … status so we can have a ledger of cases.”

The ACS-COT publishes Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient, which guides the standards of care of trauma patients from a systems approach. According to the ACS-COT, level three trauma centers have the ability to care for most trauma patients. They transfer only the most seriously injured to level one and two centers when the needs of the patient exceed the resources of the hospital.

New York State has four levels of trauma center designation. Level one is the highest, reserved for large university hospital systems in urban areas.