Southern Nevada Health District's Board of Health voted down bids from three Las Vegas hospitals to add Level III trauma centers, mirroring recommendations from both the Regional Trauma Advisory Board and the Office of Emergency Medical Services and Trauma System to deny the applications, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
The bids came from Centennial Hills Hospital, Mountain View Hospital and Southern Hills Hospital.
Both Mountain View and Southern Hills are owned by the Hospital Corporation of America headquartered in Nashville, Tenn. According to the Sun, HCA said the board was biased toward maintaining the status quo in the region's trauma system because the advisory board's members consisted of five physicians and two nurses from competitor University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. UMC operates a Level II pediatric trauma center and the region's sole Level I trauma center. HCA has argued that the board voted to protect UMC and not improve patient care in the region.
Opponents of the bids argued that such an expansion would hinder UMC's ability to provide quality care and adequately train physicians, which would harm the overall quality of care in the region. They also said HCA's primary motives were to boost profits, not to improve the quality of healthcare for the community.