Mount Nittany Medical Center is now a Level IV trauma center. Here’s what it means

Mount Nittany Medical Center is now up and running as an official trauma center after receiving the formal accreditation that officials believe will lead to enhanced care for patients.

Mount Nittany Health was awarded a Level IV trauma center accreditation in early January, following more than two years of work to implement the necessary policies and get the “key personnel in place,” Dr. Matthew Davidson, a physician in general surgery, recently told the Centre Daily Times.

The Level IV trauma center designation is the lowest on the four-pronged scale of trauma centers. It means it is smaller in size and primarily provides initial care and stabilization for traumatic injuries before arranging patient transfer to a higher-level trauma center, according to the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation, the commonwealth’s certifying body that oversees accreditation.

For Mount Nittany, it means they’ll be able to more rapidly diagnose a trauma patient and prepare them to be transported, following a strict set of protocols set by the PTSF. They will also have advanced trauma life support staff on-hand 24/7.

“The trauma designation means that we are held to certain standards, and so in trauma care, the faster things happen, the better patients do,” Davidson said. “I’m the director, but I’m just one tiny little cog in a greater system here. Everyone’s involved in the goal, which is to get trauma patients managed through the ER, get that taken care of as quickly as possible — or stabilize them — and then get them transferred to a bigger center, if necessary.”

Davidson added that with the new accreditation, the necessary procedures for a trauma patient will be carried out more “like a fine-tuned machine.”

Mount Nittany still does not have the capability to treat trauma patients with more than just minor injuries on their own, meaning that many will still end up receiving a flight to another higher-level trauma center for care following their stabilization — just at a faster speed now due to a dedicated trauma-trained staff, around-the-clock diagnostic tools and pre-arranged transfer protocols.

“The [Centre County] Commissioners are very supportive of Mount Nittany Medical Center,” Commissioner Mark Higgins said in a written statement.

He continued: “It is wonderful that they have received their Level IV accreditation, especially because they have been working toward that for several years. With more people moving to the area, having a medical facility with these trauma capabilities closer to our community will be a very valuable service.”

Level III trauma centers “have services to care for patients with moderate injuries and rapidly stabilize and transport the severely injured trauma patient to a higher-level trauma center,” PTSF’s website states. Levels I and II are the highest and have the ability to treat almost any kind of trauma.

“A Level I trauma center like Geisinger in Danville or [the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center], for example, they have all in-house personnel, neurosurgeons and in-house anesthesia,” Davidson said. “The designation isn’t really based on how many trauma patients you take in, it’s really what kind of in-house personnel you have, and whether they are trained to treat those injuries.”

Before the recent designation, State College was farther away from an accredited trauma center than any incorporated place in Pennsylvania with larger population, and Penn State was farther away from a trauma center than any other Big Ten school.

Penn Highlands DuBois is the closest Level II trauma center to State College, sitting roughly 65 miles from Mount Nittany. UPMC Altoona was previously the closest Level II facility to Mount Nittany, but its accreditation level was dropped to Level III in August 2024.

After Penn Highlands DuBois, the next closest Level II or higher trauma centers to State College are UPMC Williamsport at 66 miles (Level II), Geisinger Danville at 82 miles (Level I) and Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown at 90 miles (Level I).

Geisinger Lewistown, Geisinger Jersey Shore and Conemaugh Miners Medical Center in Hastings are also Level IV trauma centers, although Mount Nittany serves as an anomaly among its fellow central Pennsylvanian Level IV trauma centers, Davidson said.

“While many places that are Level IVs will maybe have a couple hundred traumas a year, we will have a couple hundred traumas a month, and so we’ve become sort of this extreme outlier,” Davidson said. “We have, from a quantity perspective, numbers that you would see at a Level I trauma center.”

Mount Nittany does not currently have plans on trying to raise its accreditation level, Davidson said, although he “wouldn’t be surprised if it evolves into that.”

“There’s a huge [trauma center] void in the north-central part of the state,” Davidson said. “As of right now, though, we’re still just trying to hone our Level IV. We don’t have specific plans to increase our accreditation, but who knows how the needs will change? And that need may require us to upgrade at some point.”

Davidson added that despite Mount Nittany potentially losing out on nearly $9 million in federal funding due to the stripping of a special Medicare status, “the trauma patients will be taken care of regardless,” and that the loss in funding is “not going to affect our care no matter the outcome.”

It was shared in November 2023 that Penn Highlands State College would also be pursuing a Level IV trauma center accreditation, but the newest hospital in Centre County has yet to announce any accreditations.