Massachusetts General Laws
Chapter 111c - Emergency Medical Services System
Section 11 - Statewide Coordinated Trauma Care System; Regulations and Guidelines; Trauma Registry Reporting and Analysis System; Designation as Trauma Center; Limitations

Section 11. (a) The department shall develop a statewide coordinated trauma care system. At a minimum, the department, by regulation and guideline, shall provide for (1) the designation of trauma centers at various levels; (2) policies, including, without limitation, pre-hospital triage, treatment and transportation and transfer policies for trauma for both children and adults; and (3) coordination of pediatric and adult trauma care among all hospitals, EMS first response and ambulance services within each region and, as appropriate, across geographic areas. In promulgating regulations and guidelines under this section, the department shall also consider current guidelines adopted by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma and the American College of Emergency Physicians or promulgated by the federal government.
(b) The regulations and guidelines shall include, at a minimum:
(1) pre-hospital care management guidelines for triage and transportation of pediatric and adult trauma patients consistent with trauma plans prepared in accordance with paragraph (3) of subsection (c) of section 4;
(2) requirements that trauma centers shall provide an appropriate level of quality of care to trauma patients referred to the centers and standards for the assessment of the quality of care;
(3) minimum requirements for resources and equipment needed by a trauma center to treat pediatric and adult trauma patients;
(4) standards for the availability and requisite qualifications of the health care personnel, including, without limitation, physicians and nurses, treating pediatric and adult trauma patients within a center;
(5) requirements for a trauma registry data collection system, including, without limitation, patient origin, trauma incidence reporting, system operation, and patient outcome; and
(6) requirements for periodic performance evaluation of the system and its components.
(c) The department shall develop and maintain a trauma registry reporting and analysis system which shall at a minimum:
(1) identify pediatric and adult trauma patients discharged from each hospital in this state by relevant characteristics, including, without limitation, age and cause of and level of severity of injury, as defined by the department;
(2) identify the total amount of trauma care expenditures made each fiscal year by each hospital or other health care facility in this state, aggregated or desegregated in reasonable detail; and
(3) require the reporting and analysis of patient diagnosis, treatment, facility and other reasonably detailed trauma care information by each hospital; provided, however, that the department may not require a hospital to report to the department any data under this section that the hospital otherwise reports to the commonwealth or any of its agencies; provided further, that the department shall be authorized to access and directly obtain data in a timely manner that is collected by the center for health information and analysis that the department determines is necessary for analyzing trauma-related services; and provided further, that the department shall maintain a de-identified database of all trauma patients treated at hospitals in the commonwealth, including all data from the trauma registry, that shall be made available, upon request, to any acute care hospital licensed in the commonwealth that submits trauma data to the department or to the center for health information analysis.
(d) A hospital may apply to the department for designation as a trauma center, and the department shall grant the designation if the hospital meets the requirements for trauma system participation and designation prescribed by regulation.
(e) After 18 months following the effective date of this chapter, a health care facility may not use the terms ''trauma facility'', ''trauma center'', or similar terminology in its signs or advertisements or in the printed materials and information it provides to the public unless it is a hospital that has been designated as a trauma center under this chapter.
(f) The department may deny, suspend, or revoke a hospital's designation as a trauma center if the hospital fails to comply with this section or the regulations adopted under it.