UTMB’s Clear Lake Campus has received Level II Trauma Verification from The American College of Surgeons, meaning it is equipped to deliver comprehensive trauma care, including the definitive treatment of severely injured patients.
“A Level II Trauma Designation means our facility provides comprehensive trauma care with 24/7 in-house coverage by trauma surgeons and prompt availability of specialists such as neurosurgery, orthopedics and critical care,” said Ann Varghese, administrator of the UTMB Health Clear Lake & League City campuses.
“A Level II trauma center delivers the highest level of clinical trauma services in the community, ensuring patients have access to advanced, lifesaving care close to home,” Varghese said. “This designation reflects our commitment to providing specialized services and coordinated care for the most critically injured patients.”
Achieving Level II status was a multi-year process, according to UTMB Trauma Services Program Director Julie Matson.
“We have put in years of hard work to ensure that we meet all the standards of the American College of Surgeons. This has included hiring subspecialty surgeons, implementing new protocols and processes to elevate the care of our severely injured patients, and hiring more staff to help with the increase in volume,” Matson said.
Commitments from administration, hospital staff and medical staff, as well as buy-in from the EMS partners that transport patients to UTMB, also were instrumental in achieving the Level II status, said UTMB System Trauma Medical Director Dr. Hoang Q. Pham.
“We have Trauma Department staff that maintain our registry, perform quality improvement, coordinate hospital efforts across departments and do community injury prevention interventions,” Pham said. “We had to increase operating room, ER, radiology and ICU staffing to maintain continual readiness for injured patients.
“Finally, all the departments at UTMB had to help take care of patients,” he said. “We have a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week trauma faculty and anesthesia faculty in the hospital. We consult and rely on all the departments and subspecialists at UTMB to see and treat our patients.”
The Clear Lake Campus became level II capable in October of 2022 and in the year following more than doubled the amount of trauma patients seeking care there. The campus completed a successful consultative survey visit in January 2024 and spent the next year and a half fine-tuning the survey recommendations.
“In June of 2025, we welcomed the American College of Surgeons surveyors and completed a successful two-day verification with no deficiencies, which speaks to the strength of our program and the commitment of UTMB to high-quality patient care,” Matson said.
According to the ACS report, “This is an up-and-coming trauma center that is well supported within the hospital system. The leadership is invested in achieving ACS Level II status, and the trauma program leadership is engaged and active.”
Trauma is the leading cause of death in America for people under the age of 45, according to the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.
“We have a young, growing community here and have a need for more trauma centers to care for the young people in our population as well as for the increasing number of geriatric patients with injuries,” Pham said.
“It is recommended that there is one Level I or II trauma center for every half a million population. The greater Houston area has three Level I trauma centers and six Level II trauma centers besides UTMB CLC,” he said. “We are helping to serve the large population of Houston by becoming a Level II trauma center.”
Although it was just recently verified as a Level II Trauma Center, CLC already meets most of the requirements to become a Level I trauma center. Level I centers, including UTMB’s John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, have senior general surgery residents on service, perform trauma research and have at least 1,200 trauma admissions per year.
While closely aligned with the capabilities of Level I facilities, Level II centers provide high-level clinical care without the academic research requirements associated with Level I designation.
“A commitment to delivering exceptional care to the communities we serve is hard-wired at UTMB; it’s in our DNA,” said Dr. Jochen Reiser, president of UTMB and CEO of the UTMB Health System. “This verification affirms that commitment and our ability to provide comprehensive trauma services, ensuring that patients receive timely, expert treatment close to home.”