The Impact of Trauma Service Areas on Texas' Shutdown Policies

December 03, 2020

The NBC 5 Dallas-Forth Worth recently published an article titled, "What Are Texas' Trauma Service Areas and How Do They Affect Shutdowns?" explains the methods and purposes behind Texas' Trauma Service Areas.

Texas' Trauma Service Areas (TSA) are 22 regional bodies made up of Texas' 254 counties, created "to reduce the incidence of trauma through education, data collection, data analysis and performance improvement". A TSA tracks the numbers of COVID-19 patients in the hospitals of any given region, signaling the implementation of new restrictions when the hospital capacity reaches or exceeds the 15% mark for seven consecutive days.

Restrictions include the suspension of elective surgeries and new occupancy capacity limits for public establishments. For these limits to be lifted, the TSA in question must go more than 7 days without meeting the 15% of hospital capacity. Seven different TSAs (TSA-C, TSA-E, TSA-F, TSA-D, TSA-G, TSA-L, and TSA-M) cover the area of North Texas, each of them under the jurisdiction of a Regional Advisory Council. With 19 counties and more than 26% of the Texas population, TSA-E is by far the largest of these units.

Read the full article here: What Are Texas' Trauma Service Areas and How Do They Affect Shutdowns?.