CLEVELAND, Ohio– University Hospitals is joining the Northern Ohio Trauma System (NOTS), the regional network coordinating trauma care that, until today, included only MetroHealth, The Cleveland Clinic and Southwest General.
The announcement brings to an end nearly two years of debate, bickering and bad feeling between the hospital systems, which began when UH announced the opening of a Level 1 trauma center on the East Side.
Mayor Frank Jackson said NOTS has done a good job with trauma care in the region thus far. “With the entry of University Hospitals into the organization, I believe it will take it to another level,” he said.
The NOTS system — which involved collaboration among the Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth and Southwest General — has been around since 2010. UH had been invited to participate in NOTS several times, but had declined.
In the spring of 2015 UH announced its plans to open its own Level 1 trauma center, a move that led to months of rancor among officials at MetroHealth and UH.
University Hospital and its political surrogates in city council argued that a Level 1 center was needed on the city’s East Side to reduce transport times and provide more effective care.
MetroHealth and NOTS, a network that included the Clinic, MetroHealth and Southwest General, raised concerns that a new center could harm patients by diluting the large volume of patients trauma doctors need to amass experience and skill, and potentially lead to more deaths.
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