It's pretty sad that even after they have opened up the trauma center, Paali is still using the BLATANT lie of saying it took people 73 minutes to get to a trauma center before. Really? Come on, we have the trauma center now. Stop touting this lie for your own agenda. Not to mention that there are rumors of their overinflating of trauma numbers. Be it by EMS bringing them soft traumas that should actually just go to their local hospitals instead, or Paoli themselves upgrading a non-serious trauma patient just to get the trauma assessment numbers.......

NO offense Gregory but my daughter was in a horrible car accident in 2008. Brandywine had closed it's trauma center. Because she had a major back injury she was sent to Crozer-Chester;s trauma center. Obviously by the time she arrived at the hospital and care started it was over an hour. She couldn't walk for a month. The girl Sara in this video is someone she knew and we are glad that Paoli was able to help her in such a timely fashion. Maybe you have never had a child involved in a major trauma, knowing Paoli is right around the corner helps me sleep at night. I never want to have to drive to Crozer-Chester or into the city again for my family. I want them to receive the care they need immediately. Hope if you never experienced something like this, you never have to, but if you do, be glad Paoli 's Trauma ctr is opened and nearby.

Paoli Hospital Trauma Center saved my life this past July when I suffered a near fatal gunshot wound to the head. I cannot praise the doctors and nurses enough for keeping me here with my family and friends. Due to the fact that I was brought to an excellent facility within 15 minutes of my home, my family was able to come see me daily. The ICU nurses and staff provided such wonderful care to me and at the same time they were equally as wonderful to my family. I am a mother of four children and I am extremely grateful to Paoli Hospital's doctors and nurses for keeping me here with my family.

Cmed, no offense taken. And unfortunately, I have had family requiring trauma services (@both Brandywine and the University of Pennsylvania.). And not having all of the info and going only on what you've provided, it sounds as if your daughter should have been medevac'd down to the city, and not transported by ground all the way down to Crozer (also depends on where her accident was).
In the video, the Doc (Chris?) cites that Paoli was able to help save her because of her decreased oxygen levels, etc. And that she would have probably not survived if she hadn't been taken to Paoli. The flipside of that story is the fact that, if the flight service had been utilized, it would have been an even shorter time to put a breathing tube in and she would have had it before the time Paoli even gave it to her.

And not to mention, it only takes those helos about ten minutes to get down to the city. So if it takes less time for the helos to get to the city than most of the Chester County ambulance to get to Paoli, will Kerry Larkin, Nurse, please explain to how it is possible for the average transport time to go down by 40-something minutes? IT'S NOT. Complete fabrication and twisting of statistics is all that this has been. By the County ems to us as providers. By the county EMS and hospital to the general public in their scare tactics to force this issue. They achieved this trauma center of lies, and they maintain it on lies. And were it me or my family members, I would rather drive downtown to them in the city in a heartbeat. It's not about my convenience commuting to see them. That's completely selfish. It's about the care they recieve. I would send them across the country if it would get them better care for their injuries or sickness. But we don't have too. We have some of the finest trauma centers in the country, right here in Philly. More volume=more experience, leads to better care.

Gregory who are you and where do you work. Maybe down at one of those big city hospitals. Mad at Paoli much!!!!

Kathy, no I don't. I work in EMS. Mad at Paoli AND The County? Yes! They forced this through with lies and scare tactics. To anyone with any knowledge of how EMS works, their (Paoli and the county) arguments are paper thin and full of bogus statements. But don't bother with debating any of my facts, just throw our more distracting and false assumptions to try and take away from the validity of my argument. Or how is this Kathy? Work at Paoli or the county, do you? Why the anger at those "big city hospitals"?

Dear Gregory, take a deep breath and relax......

Sharon,
I am perfectly relaxed, thank you. :) I'm just tree of all of these PR things from Paoli and the county doing nothing but pushing false numbers. And tired of people just swallowing them up at face value. But then I get discounted and accused of being an employee of a "big city hospital" because people are too ignorant of the realities of the situation.

Gregory,
As the mother of Sara, I do not appreciate your insensitivity or your ranting inappropriately on an article about her story when you don't know what you're talking about. If you want to comment on your own experience that's fine, there are plenty of avenues for your to do so. But DO NOT comment on the care my daughter received at Paoli Hospital or the wonderful doctors and nurses who spend their energy saving lives. You can go to any hospital you like. We thank God for Paoli Hospital and their trauma center.
Colleen

Colleen, as I've stated in previous posts, I am glad your daughter's recovery has worked out so well. I'm glad that she has had made such progress. But unfortunately, TE commenters in the article have opened this article up for debate. Be angry at them, not I. For they are the ones that decided to continue pushing their lies in this article. Unfortunately, don't be fooled to think this PR video was strictly done to promote your daughter's amazing recovery. It was motivated by Paoli's own agenda, as evidenced by the multiple statements and graphics that have no bearing whatsoever on her great story.

@Kathy,
Please re-read my posts. My posts have always been directed at Paoli, not telling everyone that they are wrong. My posts towards the other posters here have been attempting to educate them as to the false propaganda being pushed by the County and Paoli. And you can only do so much when several people at the county have their own private agenda that they are willing to twist numbers to get what they want. Thank you. Again no anger here. Why can't someone disagree with something without getting accused of all kinds of BS? People ignore the issues brought up and just attack the poster. Not one person has addressed the issues raised, only attacked me for being angry, insensitive, etc.

Gregory is not that far off as most of you think. Listen to the message and glean what you can without anger. Politics and healthcare are linked very closely.

Doc, we can just discuss it right here. 1st piece of false propaganda: Pre-PMH trauma center it took the average patient 73 minutes to reach a trauma center. Blatantly false. That's just not even physically/geographically possible. You would think with the County's asinine little habit of sending snotty little notes with mapquest maps attached, even they would know this. We'll start with that one for now. I do applaud your willingness to step forward in this discussion, and have no complaints with the patient handoffs I've done with you. This not personal.

Doc, I understand your offer and appreciate it. I would rather discuss this here in a public forum, and educate the public to these issues.

Here, I'll start. The statistics initially pushed out by the the County sponsored task force and then continued by you guys states that Pre-Paoli trauma patients had a 73 mInute injury-trauma center time average. And post-Paoli trauma, that number has miraculously dropped to 37 minutes.

Now if all patients were being Treated transported appropriately, how is this even possible? When transport by the helos to any of the trauma centers were no longer than 15 minutes. And that's in the farthes corners of the county (where ground transport time to Paoli is closer to a half hour). Now if they are cherry picking for the statistic and selecting only patients that went to those trauma centers by ground, then the are selecting a demographic that were not transported appropriately to begin with.

A bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Here's another one..... The fact that a large percentage of the trauma patient increase was due to the grossly inappropriate over-triage by several local hospitals that refused to take any patients in spinal immobilization. Patients that did not warrant trauma center services by the State's trauma triage criteria. Patients that should have gone to those local community hospitals, but instead went to Paoli, thereby falsely increasing your trauma numbers for when the state trauma board evaluated you guys. Ask your Rep at the County council meetings. She sat there with a smile on her face the whole time it was blowing up about the other two hospitals when it at the last meeting.

I'm not sure I'm following all of this and I'm certainly not an expert on the politics of a trauma center. But, shouldn't we be happy that there's a trauma center in Chester County? And isn't Paoli's trauma center affiliated with Jefferson? Jefferson has a pretty good reputation in Philly and the staff that I've dealt with at Paoli have always been knowledgable and experienced- maybe some of them came from Jefferson.
I certainly understand the "More volume=more experience, leads to better care" argument, but can't something be said for a "less volume=more personalized care" aspect too? Like I said, I'm no expert in trauma care or its politics, but I appreciate there being a trauma center nearby in case, God forbid, there is a situation that requires trauma care for my friends or family.

Another problem is that, as I noted already, Paoli used to be one of the several hospitals that would complain all the time about many of the patients they were brought. And my understanding from friends in the East who take patients there much more frequently than I, they still do this often.
Another: talking to friends who work in that area, Paoli still transfers out quite a bit of patients to higher care centers. The problem there is similar to what Delaware county experienced years ago with Crozer. Crozer would get very upset when patients were transported to city trauma centers and started to hammer the county to enforce making all county patients go to Crozer. Even the patients that were 5 minutes away from HUP and 15-20 away from Crozer. Crozer would then treat them and then admit or quite often transfer them downtown. This causes a delay in the patient reaching definitive care. A disgracefully unneeded one. And what we appear to be going through now in this county is exactly how it started out down there.

Paoli's trauma center is all about Main Line Health. They wanted to be able to have a trauma center in ther health system. It works for them as a status builder. They were set on having it, even when many of the staff physicians complained loudly about the prospect. These are just a couple of more reasons why this whole thing is shady.

Ummm. No worries. My screenname is my name. I don't know you and don't care. This is about bringing out to the public all this crap. So go back to Malvern and have fun....

Embarrassing? How so? Please explain or contradict with proof anything I have said....I'll be waiting.

A comment was deleted because the user's name violated the terms of use. People are passionate about this topic and have very different opinions, but please keep it civil. Thanks to everyone who is contributing to the conversation.

Yo Gregory, Sara's father here....Dr.Kaulback's offer for a public forum at your station house is genuine yet you seem to prefer the anomynity of the online forum where you do not have to stand up and face the people you rail against. Be a man, accept Dr. K's offer and present your position in person rather than hiding behind the internet. I'll be there as will be my wife and probably Sara. Bring your convictions to a truly public forum. Rob Galbraith

To Sara's parents:
I have stated MULTIPLE times that this is nothing personal towards your daughter. I have stated MULTIPLE times that her story is an amazing one. I have stated MULTIPLE times that I am very happy that things went so well for her. And I have state MULTIPLE times, that unfortunately for her story, the hospital and this article have chosen to put her story forward as an example of how great they are, even when they still tout erroneous statistics.

Ma'am, if I may ask, how exactly did you "research" that Sara received better care at Paoli than she would have gotten in the city? Comparing morbidity/mortality numbers? Number of patients seen by the various trauma services? Successful patient outcomes of the various services? While there is NO ARGUMENT AT ALL that being located close to family helps the healing process, no argument (I've seen firsthand the difference it makes), it is not the single factor in determining good patient outcomes.

As for the attacking nature of you, Sir. I ask these questions in a public forum, because everybody deserves the answer. I already know the validity of these statements. But the public deserves to hear the discourse. Whether you know the rest of my identity or not, how does that have one iota of bearing on the validity of the issues raised???the point of discourse on public forums is to generate many views from many places, not just two people back and forth. And it is to also inform the many.

I'm done though. It's quite obvious nobody is interested in any kind of public discussion of the issue. Too bad.

Not a coward. Just tired of immature/rude people(such as yourself) and people not willing to discuss the topic. Try just want confuse the issue rather than addressing and discussing issues raised. Who are you, Mr. Johnny Bravo? I've at least given you part of my name. I haven't been insulting or anything. Not hiding behind anything. Simply using medium to discuss an issue. So are you a fervent supporter of Paoli or just some Main Line whacker? I've been productively adding and trying to discuss. You have been attacking and condescending with both of your childish posts.

I've removed comments from "I'm the real Gregory" because they were likely posted using a fake email address. Our tech people are looking into it, and if they are legitimate, they will be restored.

Gregory, where is your proof or your substantiated facts that the numbers are false? Support your argument, don't just throw out slandor. If there are lies, what's the truth and why? Did you actually study the timing before and after trauma services? Paoli has very legitimate reasoning along with actual facts supported by definitive research behind their statistics, all you have are your words. Show me what the truth really is and substantiate it, then your argument may have some validity.

Proof? How about actually having taken patients to Paili from various sections of the county. How about taking patients to trauma centers outside of the county from within Chester County. The absolute longest transport I've ever done was 35 minutes. I've transported patients to Lancaster, Reading, Christiana, Crozer, HUP, and Jefferson from within Chester County. I take that back, I think I had one that was just over 40 minutes. That's why we have helicopters now.

I could sit here and pull up mapquest for you and show you the time needed for transport to any one of a number of trauma centers in the area. We have more trauma centers in this area than some whole entire states do.

So this is about your own personal experience but no one else is allowed to base their opinions on their personal experience? I did not say that having Sara close to friends and family was the sole basis of my position. No I did not research the statistics you mentioned above when I did my research. I have only spoken to representatives of other trauma centers in the 3 state area as well as reading too many articles and legal opinions. As for this area having more trauma centers than some states, this area also has a larger population and denser areas of population than some states. Once again, each of the four paragraphs in the article above relates to Sara's care. Only the fifth paragraph states something I cannot relate specifically to Sara's care but you dispute. Others have said the numbers you dispute were put together by outside agencies, not Paoli Hospital. Your numbers come from you, unless I'm missing something. Mapquest does not address all of the variables. Oh were it that simple.

Colleen, I never said that at all. Although my personal experience is based on more than 25 years in EMS. Yours is based on one incident. Which article are you referring to? The one I am reading mentions her name in ONLY the first two paragraphs. The other paragraphs are a support structure for their argument. The argument that is laid out in the byline of the whole thing that says Sara's story is an example of their importance.

Again, people don't want to discuss. They only want personal attacks and to discuss everything but the issues I raised in my very first post and the supporting points since. And we wonder why the cost of healthcare is so high.... It's called duplication of resources. That is a contributing factor to the issue.

I am far from the only one who has anecdotal evidence like I have brought up regarding the times. I am far from the only one that has experienced some of the issues I have raised. I am far from the only one that was at the county meeting last month where it came out through the CQI process that there was a LARGE number of patients going to Paoli because certain hospitals were turning away ANY patient that has a longboard and collar.

I will explain that for those who may not understand the significance of that. Part of the justification process is that the trauma center applicant has to show a volume of care provided. If they can't show that, their chances of accreditation are much lower. Because it demonstrates a lack of need, as well as a lack of skill development. When several hospitals don't take patients that they are supposed to be able to handle, and those patients have to go to Paoli, it raises there numbers erroneously, making it look like there is a need when there really may not be.

Pleas explain to me where I have done any personal attacking.

Thought so.

Sorry, Colleen. I figured two weeks would have been adequate time to provide a response. Obviously not.

Cast4- Sorry, as nepotistic and vengeful as EMS is, and this county.......

Cast4- Volly, Paid, neither, both, yes......

It doesn't matter. Quit deflecting from the discussion and trying to figure out ways to respond to my background and not addressing the issue. Whether I'm volunteer or paid has zero relevance.

Just Saying...

Depending on who you run with you have no right to criticize. Many companies in this county need to work on getting ambulances out before response check. You talk about transport times, what about the companies that waste 7+ minutes with their ambulance scratching and refuse to put it on zero response?

Again, trying to distract from the issue at hand. It has zero relevance. Attempting to justify one negative with another....

The issue you bring up is no less important and does need to be addressed by this county, but has zero relevance other than to change the subject from the discussion at hand.

Gregory, get a life!

I wonder what ever happened to Gregory?