Ohio bill aims to improve state’s trauma system

A bill introduced this week in the Ohio General Assembly aims to make Ohio’s trauma system more effective and lower the rate at which the state’s residents die of serious injuries (Source: “Bill aims to create two-step process to improve Ohio’s trauma system,” Columbus Dispatch, June 17, 2015).

“Our current trauma system needs an overhaul here in Ohio, as evidenced by the increasing age-adjusted mortality rate for injury,” said one of the bill’s co-sponsors, state Rep. Cheryl Grossman, a Republican from Grove City.

House Bill 261 would create a 19-member trauma board administered within the Ohio Department of Health. Board appointments would be made by the governor, president of the Senate and speaker of the House.

The board would work to create a more coordinated trauma system, said bill co-sponsor Rep. Steve Huffman, a Republican from Tipp City and emergency-medicine doctor.