News

Aiken Regional Medical Centers has earned a Level IV Trauma Center designation by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. This designation recognizes the hospital’s dedication to providing a spectrum of care for injured patients.

“Our Level IV designation further demonstrates how dedicated our team is to continuing to provide an advanced complexity of healthcare within Aiken and surrounding communities,” says Matt Merrifield, Chief Executive Officer of Aiken Regional Medical Centers. “This tremendous accomplishment was able to be achieved due to the highly trained and committed medical staff, clinical team, ancillary and administrative employees who have developed policies and procedures to ensure our hospital is prepared to receive and rapidly treat trauma patients and those with complex injuries.”

As a Level IV Trauma Center, Aiken Regional is able to provide advanced trauma life support which includes evaluation, stabilization and diagnostic capabilities for injured patients. The hospital is able to care for patients with acute injuries, as well as multiple injuries endured from a fall or motor vehicle accident to heart attacks and other trauma.

“As a Trauma Center, there are strict designation requirements that require us to have an organized team to promptly respond to traumatic injuries,” says Lorenzo Sampson, MD, FACS, Medical Director of Trauma at Aiken Regional Medical Centers. “Our emergency department has always been staffed by emergency physicians and a team who are able to treat patients experiencing a range of health issues, from chest pain to stroke to minor scrapes and sprains. As a Level IV Trauma Center, we now have an organized team of trauma surgeons, emergency medicine physicians, trauma-trained nurses, anesthesiologists and operating room personnel available 24 hours a day, seven days week to evaluate and treat any injury.”

Aiken Regional now joins a Trauma System of facilities that provides a spectrum of care to injured patients to include collaboration with EMS agencies throughout the region and with other Trauma Centers in the event a patient may need to be transferred to or from another facility to receive a higher level of comprehensive care.

Our team is dedicated to patient safety and providing quality healthcare services, many of which are recognized on a state, regional or national level:

• Named by U.S. News & World Report as a 2022-2023 High Performing hospital for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Heart Failure, Kidney Failure and Stroke
• Certified Primary Heart Attack Center (CPHA) by The Joint Commission and the American Stroke Association®/American Heart Association® (AHA)
• Certified Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission and the American Stroke Association/American Heart Association
• AHA Get with the Guidelines® Stroke, Gold Plus 2022
• AHA Get With The Guidelines Heart Failure, Gold Plus 2022
• AHA Mission: Lifeline® STEMI Receiving Silver Award Recipient
• AHA Mission: Lifeline NSTEMI Receiving Silver Award Recipient