On April 12, ECU Health teams joined forces with Pitt-Greenville Airport and other local agencies, including fire/rescue teams, emergency management and police, for an emergency exercise, simulating a mass-casualty aircraft accident.
This full-scale exercise included volunteers acting as patients and involved various ECU Health departments to demonstrate preparedness for critical situations.
Chris Starbuck, system director of Emergency Management at ECU Health, emphasized the importance of these exercises.
“Participating in the airport exercise is a vital part of our preparedness strategy. It allows us to test our emergency response plans, strengthen communication with our community partners and ensure we’re ready to provide the highest level of care when seconds count. These collaborations are key to saving lives during large-scale incidents,” Starbuck said.
Leaders and team members from the Emergency Department, Trauma, hospital supervisors, Children’s, police, marketing and communications, decedent care and Eastern Healthcare Preparedness Coalition collaborated in a table-top exercise, discussing each person’s role in the event.
The ECU Health EastCare team was also present with a helicopter and ECU Health Medical Center’s ambulance bus stopped by to showcase its readiness to transport patients in a real emergency scenario.
Throughout the drill, ECU Health teams reviewed the notification process, patient movement strategies and interactions with Greenville Fire/Rescue, Pitt County Emergency Management, police and others.
The goal of this exercise was to identify opportunities to improve processes and give organizations in Pitt County time to work together, ensuring readiness to adapt and respond quickly and efficiently in real emergencies.
This drill was a valuable learning experience for all involved, enhancing preparedness and confidence in handling critical situations.
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ECU Health Emergency & Trauma
Maynard Children’s Hospital
ECU Health EastCare
To be a health care provider is to answer a calling. For some, the journey to health care is a straight line; for others, the road is winding. This series features stories from ECU Health team members who took the winding road, but found the destination to be worth the effort.
Dr. Roberto Portela, the chief of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) division of the department of emergency medicine at ECU Health Medical Center and associate professor at East Carolina University in the department of emergency medicine, grew up in Puerto Rico. Originally, he aspired to be a veterinarian. “As a kid, you think about what you’d like to do, and taking care of animal sounded like a good fit for me,” he said. “I love animals.” But when he joined the military in 1994 and received training as a combat medic, he discovered he loved acute care. “Trauma care – those first minutes or hour of patient care – attracted me.”
Dr. Portela said his work in the military was instrumental in not only finding his path to emergency medicine, but also in how he carries himself as a physician. “The military teaches respect, and as a physician, you need to be respectful to your patients and colleagues,” he shared. “Everybody has a mission and a role, and you don’t always know what’s going on in your patient’s world, so just be respectful.”
After his military service, Dr. Portela attended the University of Puerto Rico to receive his MD and specialized in emergency medicine at the University of Puerto Rico Hospital in Carolina. He ended up staying there for nine years teaching residents how to be emergency medicine physicians. “Then in 2013, I moved to the United States and started as a faculty member at ECU,” he said. “The main thing that brought me here was the desire to expand on my specialty in EMS. In Puerto Rico, I worked in my home program as an attending, I worked with the state EMS system as their online medical control, I helped as a medical director and served as a volunteer in our rescue squad in Puerto Rico. Thank God, ECU gave me that opportunity. I came here, and the doors opened for me.”
Those open doors led to the chance to serve as the EMS medical director for Pitt County, the chief of the EMS Division of the Department of Emergency Medicine, the program director for the EMS Fellowship, a member of the state EMS disciplinary committee and the president for the NC Chapter of the National Association of EMS Physicians. “It was incredible for me; because of my being here and the people in leadership who supported me, I’ve had these opportunities,” he said.
Dr. Portela also spoke about his team and the difference they make every day. “I think all emergency medicine physicians are cut from the same cloth, because they could have picked any specialty, but they chose one that provides care 24/7, 365 days a year,” he said. “The dedication they display every day is amazing – they are resilient.”
There’s also a big difference between his work with ECU Health and his work in Puerto Rico – namely, his access to resources and in-house, high-quality care. “I used to work in a small hospital where I had to transfer patients all the time to get better care; what ECU Health can offer as a system of care with a level one trauma center with multiple specialties – there’s not a lot we can’t do here,” he said.
To those considering a career in health care, Dr. Portela said don’t hesitate. “Ignore the static or what you might hear. At the end of the day, you must remember why we do health care – because somebody needs help. It’s that simple.” He also emphasized that there are many roles and opportunities for those considering a health care career. “From our care partners to all our nurses, to our physicians and tech, orderlies and lab technicians, everybody has a role and it’s a system. There are multiple jobs out there and so many opportunities to make a difference – if you’re thinking about it, just jump in.”
ECU Health hosts third ED conference session to improve community crisis response and emergency care
ECU Health and the Pitt County Department of Social Services (DSS) hosted session three of the community-based Emergency Department conference, yielding more collaboration and progress toward improving access and preventing unnecessary ED visits across eastern North Carolina.
The third and final session, hosted Feb. 4, brought back together a multidisciplinary group of community partners to discuss multi-system collaborations and crisis response focused on five key priorities as identified from the previous two working sessions. The priorities are aligned with the North Carolina Department of Health Human Services goal of increasing access to crisis services across the state.
The five key priorities include:
- Increasing access to care across eastern North Carolina
- Building community-based crisis services capacity
- Workforce/system training and community education: grow workforce knowledge and kills
- Strengthen the eastern North Carlina crisis system
- Accountability and outcomes
“We’ve made tremendous progress in our goal of enhancing collaboration to reduce the significant over utilization of the emergency department where patients will often end up stuck with no timely plans for discharge, said Jacob Parrish, vice president of capacity and throughput for ECU Health. “I am thankful to the health faith and community-based organizations that spent three days alongside us, identifying important care needs in our region and designing solutions that will benefit us all. Moreover, I am tremendously grateful for our partnership with Sharon Rochelle, Director Pitt County DSS, who has provided the essential perspective of the DSS role and support in this process.”
Crisis response is a key function of emergency departments in general, but especially so for the emergency department at ECU Heath Medical Center which is home to the only Level I Adult and Pediatric Trauma Centers in eastern North Carolina. Still, crisis response happens beyond the walls of the hospital, which emphasizes the importance of community collaboration to ensure the hospital can best serve the community in the event of a crisis.
The third session, similar to the first two, was well-attended and included community partners from across eastern North Carolina including Juvenile Justice, Trillium Health Services, Public School leaders, NC DHHS, payors, faith leaders, DSS agencies and other eastern North Carolina hospitals and key stakeholders. The key stakeholders refined the recommendations and tactics to achieve the priorities listed above, including assigning specific responsibilities to drive forward the five priority areas. Regular progress checkpoints and collaborative meetings will continue to ensure alignment with state and community goals, reinforcing a sustainable crisis response system for eastern North Carolina.
Seven key priorities served as the central discussion point as community-based health partners joined ECU Health and Pitt County Department of Social Services (DSS) in October for the second session of a conference series designed to support the emergency department and improve access to non-emergent care across eastern North Carolina.
The seven key priorities, identified during the first conference session in early October, represent the unique viewpoints from stakeholders across the community and all of whom share a common goal: reduce unnecessary utilization of the emergency department in Greenville.
The seven priorities include:
- Placement/disposition – getting patients placed in the appropriate care settings outside the emergency department such as skilled nursing facilities, in-home care, adult care homes, foster homes, etc.
- Navigating the system – defining roles and responsibilities of each agency
- Collaboration – improve collaboration among systems and across agencies
- Crisis system – more clearly defining how the system operates and clarifying any confusion that may exist
- Community options and wraparound support – ensure a robust support system in the health care setting and in the community to ensure people get the help they need
- Access to services – provide clarity on where patients need to go to access care
- Regulatory – reduce barriers and create efficiencies in key operational areas like timely discharge and clinical assessments
“This was a moment for us as a health care community to not only clearly define the challenges facing the patients we serve, but to also explore how we can implement solutions that improve the emergency care realities here in eastern North Carolina,” said Jacob Parrish, vice president of capacity and throughput at ECU Health, who served as one of the conference organizers. “The challenges facing emergency departments both locally and nationally cannot be solved solely by the hospitals themselves. These conversations help us take our words and put them into collaborative action.”
Health care and community partners in attendance at the conference included ECU Health, DSS Directors from across eastern North Carolina, Juvenile Justice, Trillium Health Services, Public School leaders, NC DHHS, payors, faith leaders, and other eastern North Carolina hospitals and key stakeholders. The conversation focused on both adult and pediatric/adolescent patient populations who present at the emergency department but could be better served in a different setting.
The importance of education and outreach served as a common theme throughout the discussion. Organizations talked not only about the importance of providing critical information directly to patients, but also emphasized the importance of educating themselves on the role that other organizations and agencies play in the care continuum.
ECU Health highlighted the growing demand for emergency department services and the urgent need to streamline care in the community for non-emergent cases. The discussions underscored how patients with non-critical issues are often funneled to emergency departments due to limited access to routine and primary care resources and crisis services, creating unnecessary strain on EDs. ECU Health Medical Center, for example, remaining full nearly half the year due to high patient volumes, which often exceed its 974-bed capacity. This backlog directly impacts how long some patients may wait in the ED.
“Our commitment to improving emergency care access and efficiency for our patients is unwavering,” said Dr. Leigh Patterson, chief of services for emergency medicine at ECU Health Medical Center. “The collaboration we’re seeing across health care and alongside our community partners demonstrates a shared dedication to creating lasting solutions that serve the unique needs of eastern North Carolina.
By addressing the root causes that lead to emergency department overutilization, we’re working to not only improve the experience for our patients but also strengthening health care in our region.”
ECU Health and Pitt County DSS will host a third session of the conference to further discuss action items and strategies to support more collaboration in the community.
It was a packed house at ECU Health’s Monroe Conference Center on Oct. 1, as ECU Health and Pitt County Department of Social Services (DSS) welcomed dozens of community-based health partners for a conference designed to help tackle a complex challenge: reducing unnecessary emergency department utilization to ensure enhanced access for those needing emergency care.
It is no secret that overcrowding in emergency departments is a challenge facing hospitals across the country. ECU Health Medical Center, the only Level I Trauma Center in ECU Health’s 29 county service area, is no exception. The medical center serves a largely underserved rural region where access to care is difficult for many. That includes primary care, behavioral health care and other services best rendered in outpatient settings. Combined with a disproportionate number of uninsured community members, this lack of access to care means patients often times end up at hospital emergency departments.
Dr. Leigh Patterson, chief of services for emergency medicine at ECU Health Medical Center and chair of emergency medicine at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, said ECU Health’s nine hospitals will see nearly 250,000 visits to the emergency department this year, with more than half of those occurring at the medical center. She said conversations with key community health leaders, like the one hosted by ECU Health and Pitt County DSS, can help ensure community members are aware of, and have access to, non-emergent health care resources outside the emergency department setting.
“When I look at what happens inside the emergency department, I see the opportunity for us to help fill the care gaps that exist outside of it,” Dr. Patterson told the group, noting that she sees about 225 adult patients per day in the medical center ED, about 40% of whom could be more appropriately served in an outpatient setting. “When it comes to addressing this problem, it will take all of us as a health care community to make meaningful change. That’s why I’m heartened that so many of you have joined us today to work together toward solutions that make an impact in our community.”
The conference represented true regional community collaboration. Health care partners present at the conference included ECU Health, DSS Directors from across eastern North Carolina, Juvenile Justice, Trillium Health Services, Public School leaders, NC DHHS, payors and other eastern North Carolina hospitals and key stakeholders.
“The ECU Health/Pitt County DSS ED conference was an excellent example of cross system collaboration,” said conference co-sponsor Sharon Rochelle, director, Pitt County DSS. “This was a day to build mutually beneficial partnerships that have common goals to better serve the children and adults of the community.”
The conversation focused on both adult and pediatric/adolescent patient populations and heavily examined the challenges that behavioral health patients face accessing care. Despite the new inpatient behavioral health hospital slated to open in Greenville in 2025, those in attendance agreed that the issue needed immediate attention which involves creating increased interconnectedness among those providing care both in the community and in the hospital setting.
“We are grateful for all agencies involved in this important and challenging work,” said Jacob Parrish, vice president of capacity and throughput at ECU Health. “We know that the complex challenges we face cannot be solved at emergency departments alone. We are fortunate to have so many committed partners who share our vision for continuous improvement through strong relationships and close collaboration. Together, we can ensure the highest quality of care for communities across the East.”
The recent meeting was the first day of the two-day conference, largely centered around examining the issues through open and honest conversations. Those in attendance will reconvene later in the month for the second meeting to develop an action plan with concrete steps and strategies for improving access to care and reducing unnecessary ED utilization in eastern North Carolina.
“This is a complex set of issues, but I am confident we have the right people in our community committed to finding the solutions,” said Brian Floyd, ECU Health chief operating officer. “While these challenges are not exclusive to our health system or region, I know that together we can help support our emergency departments and improve the experience for those needing access to high-quality emergency care which is rendered at our hospitals every single day.”
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As part of its mission, ECU Health prides itself on readiness to respond to any emergency scenario that could impact the health and well-being of the people we serve. Preparedness is imperative for a health system, especially when facing potentially unpredictable emergencies.
ECU Health Medical Center recently hosted a training exercise centered around a Chempack container from the Strategic National Stockpile, part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. The containers contain antidotes to treat the symptoms of a nerve agent exposure in response to a possible chemical incident.
“While we hope never to encounter such extreme situations, like a chemical incident, being ready to respond is essential to protect our patients and communities,” said Chris Starbuck, manager of the Eastern Healthcare Preparedness Coalition at ECU Health Medical Center. “Training for scenarios ensures that the ECU Health team is equipped to act swiftly and effectively.”
Team members from across ECU Health, including pharmacists, pharmacy team members, EastCare providers, hospital police and Emergency Management personnel, partnered with Pitt County EMS to learn more about the nationwide Chempack program. The training, led by Monica Ricks, PharmD, with NC Public Health Preparedness and Response, included an overview of possible scenarios where Chempacks may be needed and their vital role in responding to chemical emergencies.
“The Chempack program began in 1983, and luckily we have never had to deploy one,” said Starbuck. “However, a large scale chemical incident like what happened in Japan in the mid-1990s would have very negative consequences to the patients and to our health care system. I’m thankful that as a health system, we continue to prioritize preparedness through ongoing education and training. In the coming months we will conduct a table top exercise with more partners that will lead up to a regional full scale exercise.”
Learn more about how ECU Health and the Eastern Healthcare Preparedness Coalition proactively plan to help care for our region: www.easternHPC.com
ECU Health emergency medicine residents took time away from their regular Wednesday morning classroom sessions and dove into an Emergency Medicine Wilderness Day exercise at Wildwood Park in Greenville.
On May 29, about 20 emergency medicine residents spent their morning in small groups, walking around the park and encountering “patients” with different ailments. From poisoning to animal attacks and drowning scenarios to firework accidents, the experience helped residents prepare for real-world scenarios and eventual board exams. Residents received real-time instruction and feedback from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University faculty as they worked through their training.
The patients for this exercise were standardized patients from Brody’s Office of Clinical Skills Assessment and Education. Standardized patients are trained to mimic real patients so that students can learn. Their role is to help prepare future health care professionals for a variety of patient interfaces.
Dr. Sarah Thead is a second-year emergency medicine resident at ECU Health and said she’s attended the training the last two years and has benefited from the experience.
“It’s a great educational experience every time we do this,” Dr. Thead said. “It’s scenario-based and our faculty try to set up the scenarios similar to how they’ll be set up on our oral board exams, so it’s a fun experience but also really important from an educational perspective as well.”
She said the scenarios change from year to year which helps her and her co-residents as they try to work together and think quickly to help patients experiencing a medical emergency.
Dr. Jennifer M. Bennett, an emergency medicine physician at ECU Health, clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine and medical director of the Simulation Center at Brody, said this kind of exercise is important for a number of reasons.
“It’s a great opportunity to demonstrate how we can all work together, even outside of the emergency department. It’s important to work on these skills in a different environment,” Dr. Bennett said. “It’s also a good opportunity to have some team bonding for the residents. Just getting them out for a day and letting them do something a little bit different, getting them out in the sun, that’s a positive as well.”
Dr. Bennett said having Wildwood Park available to run this exercise has helped this program thrive over the last three years.
Along with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Jennifer Parker-Cote, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Brody, helped to create the simulation and organize the event.
In Dr. Parker-Cote’s simulation, residents had to assess a camper who had ingested a toxic mushroom in the woods. Residents assessed the standardized patient, asked about the patient’s medical history and made recommendations on next steps for care.
“These scenarios allow residents to apply the knowledge they’ve gained through their residency and apply it to real world situations and permits them to improvise in wilderness medicine, which you have to do a lot of times,” Dr. Parker-Cote said. “It’s important to put them through these simulations and have them think critically while working together and trying to move quickly to help our standardized patients.”
The training is another example of the valued partnership between ECU Health and Brody. Residents at an academic health system like ECU Health have support and resources for continued education from faculty and the Interprofessional Clinical Simulation Program at Brody, enriching their clinical training experience. Residents participate in trainings like this to prepare for real situations with real patients both behind the walls of the hospital and out in the community.
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When Dr. Shannon Longshore, the medical director of the pediatric trauma program at ECU Health Medical Center, first joined the hospital, the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital at ECU Health Medical Center wasn’t a verified pediatric trauma center. Now, Maynard Children’s Hospital is one of only four Level I Pediatric Trauma Centers in North Carolina and the only one serving the East.
“It is incredibly fulfilling to reflect on the growth we have experienced over the years, to now achieving verification as Level I Pediatric Trauma Center,” Dr. Longshore said. “Our teams across ECU Health have dedicated their work to constantly improving our care over the course of many years. From prevention, to treatment, and being entrusted to provide critical care at the highest level, this verification is a testament to the mission-driven work that defines our hospital and health system.”
The American College of Surgeons’ (ACS) Verification, Review and Consultation (VRC) Program is designed to assist hospitals in the evaluation and improvement of trauma care and provide objective, external review of institutional capability and performance, accomplished by an on-site review of the hospital by a peer review team experienced in the field of trauma care. There are three levels of ACS trauma center verification, with Level I being the highest verification a trauma center can achieve.
Level I Trauma Centers must be capable of providing system leadership and comprehensive trauma care for all injuries and have adequate depth of resources and personnel. These centers play an important role in local trauma system development, regional disaster planning, increasing capacity and advancing trauma care through research.
Recognizing excellence in pediatric trauma care and community outreach
Dr. Longshore herself has been instrumental in Maynard Children’s Hospital’s continued growth as a trauma center through her research and presentations at national conferences and her work with the Eastern Carolina Injury Prevention Program (ECIPP).
The ACS surveyors noted the value of ECIPP, which aims to create a safer environment, change behavior and change policy to improve the quality of life in eastern North Carolina. Sue Anne Pilgreen currently serves as the executive director of the Safe Communities Coalition and the manager of ECIPP, which has been around since 1995. Between 2020 and 2023, ECIPP was awarded more than $1 million in grant funding, which has supported work in areas such as teen driver safety, suicide prevention, firearm safety, and child passenger and bike safety.
“The surveyors were especially impressed with our work around firearm safety and suicide prevention,” said Pilgreen. “We utilize the pediatric trauma registry data, and that is what drives our work.”
Pilgreen was quick to commend ECIPP team’s work in all areas to prevent injuries, and she highlighted that while most trauma programs have one injury prevention person, ECU Health has an entire team. That enables the program to reach out to rural communities and establish new injury prevention processes.
“Even with our incredible injury prevention team, we recognize that injuries will happen,” said Pilgreen. “To have this Level I Trauma Center with the best of the best gives the opportunities for the best outcomes.”
Other specific strengths noted during the pediatric program’s survey included the addition of two pediatric orthopedic surgeons and a pediatric neurosurgeon; outreach clinical simulations in the region; the collaboration among the pediatric orthopedic surgeon, the neurosurgeon and the Pediatric ICU (PICU); and the recent renovation of the PICU to establish a family-friendly place to care for patients. Of note, a large strength also lauded was the academic research and a collaboration with the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University’s Department of Pediatrics.
This expansion of the pediatric trauma research footprint was accomplished through more than 10 publications in nationally recognized journals. Both Erika Greene, manager of the pediatric trauma program, and Elizabeth Seawell, manager of the adult trauma program, credited the collaboration with Brody to produce research and get articles accepted to journals.
“That was a big win for us,” Greene said. “We have an academic medical center with the resources and processes in place to care for injured patients, and we’ve done an amazing job to achieve Level I for pediatrics. We have the capabilities to take the best care of those patients to the highest level of the accrediting body.”
Sustained excellence in adult trauma care
The pediatric trauma center’s new Level I verification accompanies the ECU Health Medical Center’s adult trauma center re-verification of Level I, a title they have proudly held for 40 years.
“We were one of the first Level I Trauma Centers in North Carolina, and we were verified by the American College of Surgeons in 2005,” said Seawell. “We are recognized nationally for how we care for patients in a rural area.”
This recent re-verification was made possible in part due to the resources available to the program including neurosurgical, interventional radiology, orthopedic trauma neurology, and vascular resources, operating room capabilities and blood access, as well as a trauma team of 11 surgeons.
“We are the only Level I Trauma Center for 29 counties, and to reach that far and care for that many patients – we served more than 4,000 patients last year – we have to rely on local community hospitals and emergency response teams to ensure timely transfers and communication,” said Seawell.
Seawell noted that ECU Health Medical Center and Maynard Children’s Hospital have a 60 percent transfer in rate, when the national average is 30 percent, which means they work closely with local EMS agencies, regional transfer facilities, other ECU Health organizations and non-affiliated organizations to serve patients from all over the region.
“The role of our trauma program is to not transfer patients but to have all the resources we need. It provides excellence in patient care and helps keep our patients local,” said Seawell.
Dr. Eric Toschlog, medical director of the adult trauma program, emphasized the tremendous preparation required to achieve Level I. He noted that there are more than 100 standards to prepare for, including paperwork, infrastructure, teamwork and more.
“The visit from ACS is a two-day adventure in stress and anxiety,” Dr. Toschlog said. But at the conclusion, he felt immense pride. “This visit was my seventh in 24 years at ECU Health, and it was clearly our best; we were found to have no deficiencies, and the reviewers used words such as ‘exemplary’ and ‘blown away’ regarding multiple aspects of the trauma center.”
Having two Level I Trauma Centers at ECU Health is no small thing, and both centers achieving the highest level of care is due to the dedication of the trauma center teams.
“I am surrounded by brilliant, compassionate, hardworking, mission-driven individuals who share a singular vision of saving the lives of the patients we have the honor to care for each year. Our success is owed to those truly extraordinary people,” Dr. Toschlog said.
Greenville, N.C. – James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital at ECU Health Medical Center received verification from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma as a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center, becoming one of only four in the state. Maynard Children’s Hospital now joins ECU Health Medical Center as the only Level I Trauma Centers in eastern North Carolina.
“We are proud of the dedication that all of our team members at Maynard Children’s Hospital have made to prioritizing the delivery of high-quality care close to home, and achieving Level I Trauma Center verification is a demonstration of that commitment,” said Tara Stroud, vice president, Women’s and Children’s Services, Maynard Children’s Hospital. “This verification aligns with our mission to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina by ensuring patients receive prompt and specialized critical care, right here in our region.”
According to the ACS, Level I Trauma Centers must be capable of providing system leadership and comprehensive trauma care for all injuries. In its central role, a Level I Trauma Center must have adequate depth of resources and personnel. Most Level I Trauma Centers are university-based teaching hospitals due to the resources required for patient care, education and research. In addition to providing acute trauma care, these centers have an important role in local trauma system development, regional disaster planning, increasing capacity and advancing trauma care through research.
“Being a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center reaffirms our ability to provide timely, life-saving care for pediatric trauma patients,” said Dr. Shannon Longshore, pediatric trauma surgeon and medical director of the pediatric trauma unit, ECU Health Medical Center. “We see pediatric patients with injuries as the result of falls, motor vehicle collisions, ATV and dirt bike accidents and firearm injuries. The change from Level II to Level I demonstrates Maynard Children’s Hospital’s ability to maintain the highest level of care for patients and advance research publications, national presence as a trauma center and community outreach.”
In Fiscal Year 2023, ECU Health Medical Center cared for a total of 4,057 patients – 3,721 adult and 336 pediatric cases. Nearly 60 percent of patients at ECU Health Medical Center and Maynard Children’s Hospital are transferred in from other hospitals for a higher level of care; the national average is 30 percent.
ACS listed the following as major strengths of the Pediatric Trauma Program: The Eastern Carolina Injury Prevention Program, the outstanding commitment and quality of care provided by the adult trauma/acute care surgeons, availability of whole blood for pediatric trauma patients, three trauma bays, having at least two radiologist in-house 24/7 performing reads and available for consultation, neurosurgical and orthopedic support, disaster management planning and pediatric rehabilitation center.
Maynard Children’s Hospital was previously verified as a Level II Pediatric Trauma Center first in 2017. The verification lasts for three years, until February 2027. ECU Health Medical Center has been a Level I Trauma Center since 2005 and recently received re-verification in 2024.
“Maynard Children’s Hospital and ECU Health Medical Center serving as the sole Level I Trauma Centers in eastern North Carolina underscores the value of having a robust system of care with different levels of specialization, ensuring patients receive timely and appropriate treatment for all injuries, from pediatric to adult cases,” said Brian Floyd, chief operating officer, ECU Health. “Maynard Children’s Hospital’s recent verification as a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center reflects ECU Health’s commitment to clinical excellence and academic research, leading to tangible, life-saving benefits for the communities and patients we serve.”
ECU Health EastCare participated in the impactful Prom Promise initiative, engaging students at both Perquimans County High School and Richlands High School on April 23 and 24, respectively. The objective was clear: to dissuade teens from driving under the influence during prom season through vivid reenactments of motor vehicle accidents.
Before the re-enactment, students were presented with facts about the dangers of drinking and driving. According to Prom Promise’s founding organization The Prevention Network, one-third of all teen deaths occur in alcohol-related collisions between April and June, and nearly 41% of teens ages 16-19 are likely to drink or use drugs during or after prom.
Chuck Strickland, EastCare’s outreach coordinator at ECU Health, expressed the initiative’s goal of leaving a lasting impression on students, steering them away from driving under any form of impairment.
The events featured realistic depictions of crashed vehicles, complete with students portraying injuries resulting from the collisions. The students witnessed the arrival of first responders who initiated care and extricated individuals with the Jaws of Life, a tool used by emergency rescue personnel to assist in the extrication of victims involved in vehicle accidents. An EastCare helicopter landed on the scene as part of the demonstration, underscoring the importance of quick response required in such emergencies.
“I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to our local first responders for their invaluable partnership and unwavering dedication in making our DWI reenactment crash demonstration a success,” said Steve Clarke, principal, Richlands High School. “Their professionalism, expertise and commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of our students and community are truly commendable. We are grateful for their continued support and collaboration in our efforts to educate and empower our students to make responsible choices and prioritize safety at all times.”
Through collaborative efforts and a commitment to education, ECU Health and its partners aspire to instill responsible decision-making and prioritize safety among students – not only during prom season but throughout their lives.