Week in Review

State Capitol Week in Review
February 27, 2009
LITTLE ROCK – The Senate passed legislation to create a statewide trauma system.
Another major development occurred when the Senate got its first look at legislation to increase college scholarships, using revenue from the new Arkansas lottery.
Also, the legislature gave final approval to a Senate bill that allows the police to stop drivers for not wearing seat belts. It goes to the governor.
Senate Bill 315 directs the state Health Department to develop the trauma system, consisting of hospitals, emergency care providers and medical clinics that would be grouped into four categories. There would be only two or three Level 1 centers that provide the most intensive care.
There may be as many as 10 Level 2 centers, 17 Level 3 centers and 54 Level 4 centers. According to experts who spoke for the bill, the great majority of trauma victims could be treated at a Level 2, 3 or 4 center.
The level 1 centers probably would be in Little Rock and a hospital in Memphis that gets numerous patients from eastern Arkansas.
According to public health officials, more than 2,000 Arkansans were killed in traumatic accidents in 2006 and more than 25,000 were hospitalized. They estimate that a statewide trauma system would save 200 to 600 lives a year, and would prevent thousands of long-term disabilities and hundreds of millions of dollars in preventable medical costs.
The annual cost would eventually be $28 million. The system does not entail building lots of new buildings, rather it calls for improved communications, technology and training. Most of the hospitals already exist, but there is no system that coordinates their capacity most effectively.
Emergency response technicians would be able to begin diagnosis immediately when they arrive at the scene of an accident. Preparations at the nearest appropriate hospital would begin even as the ambulance is still en route. A victim may not always be taken to the nearest hospital, but to the hospital best equipped to treat the specific trauma.
Under draft legislation presented to the Senate State Agencies Committee, funding from the lottery would go into the current Academic Challenge Scholarship program to make more students eligible and to make scholarship amounts higher.
Estimates of lottery revenue are uncertain, and legislators don't want to promise financial help to college students and then not be able to deliver. Therefore, the draft bill structures the program so that scholarship amounts go up when lottery revenue goes up.
The director of the Higher Education Department estimated that the number of scholarship recipients could increase from 3,400 to more than 11,700 a year, and over a period of years provide financial help to a total of 34,000 students in Arkansas.
Senate Bill 78 would make failure to wear a seat belt a primary offense, which means the police could pull over motorists on suspicion they were not buckled up. Supporters of the bill say it could save 47 lives a year and prevent more than 500 serious injuries every year.
Also, passage of the bill means Arkansas will receive $9.5 million in federal funding for highway safety campaigns.