I was listening to a guest on a radio program about 3 years ago. He specialized in analyzing metro hospital stuff. To be fair, that’s the only place I’ve heard we’re short trauma facilities.
But his analysis was dire. Houston ranked near the bottom in what I recall was 20 large metro areas.
At the time I was shocked because a hospital was always a hospital to me. And being proud of our internationally-recognized med center I thought we’d be top of the world. But it was only one guy. So there’s that.
The John M. O’Quinn Hospital in NE Houston will be level 1 capable when opened
and a university could build one, but you are not building a “trauma center” you would be building an entire hospital…a medical school teaches, but their students often have their residency somewhere besides a hospital owned by the university
to build a hospital that would be level 1 capable you are looking at a massive amount of money and then a massive budget…that can work for places where a university (be it public or private) started their medical school decades ago along with the associated hospital and this has built a hospital system or in some cases they have become the county public health hospital and that have that book of business and that history
in Houston there is really not a lack of hospitals, hospital systems, or facilities that are county/city supported
barring getting a multi-billion dollar gift or a long term contract with the public health entities there is little chance that any university in Houston that does not already have a functioning hospital would ever be able to open their own hospital much less one capable of level 1 and keeping it open
the chances to do that would be states or major metro areas that lack a medical school or one that has a public health component and that is looking to get one…like Travis County AND they want the associated training hospital to be level 1…like Austin and Dell Seton on the Campus of the UT Dell Medical School…and really the money they give to UT ($35 million a year) is probably not even for the level 1 part of it…it just so happens that it makes sense to have a nice new facility in downtown that also has a new medical school to be level 1 (and Seton was probably already level 1