Sarasota Memorial Hospital received a full designation as a Level II trauma center from the Florida Department of Health, making it the first and only trauma program in Sarasota. Hospital officials began the process of earning the designation in early 2015, and got provisional approval to open the center in May last year.

“Earning trauma designation was a tremendous effort that required extraordinary passion, expertise and a highly specialized team to respond around-the-clock to any critical situation,” said CEO David Verinder. “This milestone achievement validates everyone’s commitment—from the Hospital Board to physicians, nurses and staff—to providing the most advanced, lifesaving care. And it certainly wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our medical staff and the community we serve.”

Hospital officials say the trauma program requires a $16-million investment over three years, including specially equipped trauma bays, operating rooms, a trauma intensive care unit, a trauma step-down unit, and several specialty nursing units. The next step at the trauma center will be a trauma progressive care until to help transition patients from critical care to rehabilitation. At the end of this year, the 44-bed Rehabilitation Pavilion is scheduled to open.

Hospital officials say the new designation will ensure critically injured patients in Sarasota County can be transported to and treated as Sarasota Memorial rather than being transported to other trauma centers. The next closest Level II trauma center, according to the Florida Department of Health, is Blake Medical Center in Bradenton. The only Level I trauma center in the region remains Tampa General in Tampa.

To earn the Level II designation, Sarasota Memorial developed a specialized team including eight trauma surgeons and two orthopedic traumatologists, as well as other emergency physicians, subspecialists, trauma and intensive care nurses and rehabilitation specialists.

Sarasota Memorial’s trauma center has treated more than 2,000 patients in its 14 months of operation. The overall trauma mortality rate in the first year was 2.9 percent, well below the 4.31 percent benchmark reported nationally for all trauma centers in 2015, according to Dr. Alan Brookhurst, SMH’s trauma center medical director.