HealthAlliance Hospital now has a state certification to admit patients suffering from severe traumatic injuries. The designation makes the former Benedictine Hospital the only certified trauma center west of the Hudson River between Newburgh and Albany.

HealthAlliance parent company WMCHealth announced this week that the hospital on Mary’s Avenue had been officially designated a Level III trauma center by state health officials. The designation means that, for the first time, patients with traumatic injuries to bones and organs can receive treatment in Kingston. Previously, trauma victims could only be stabilized at the hospital before being transported by ambulance or medevac helicopter for more advanced treatment, shaving precious time off of the “Golden Hour” when lifesaving treatment is most effective. Dr. Kartik Prabhakaran, section chief for Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at WMCHealth flagship Westchester Medical Center, said examples of injuries that could now be treated in Kingston include penetrating wounds from knives or gunshots and broken bones from vehicle crashes and falls.

“This allows patients to receive that care in their community,” said Prabhakaran. “With a facility that allows them and their families to be able to stay close to home while still receiving lifesaving and top-notch care.”

Prabhakaran helped oversee the lengthy and complex process of obtaining the state certification. That process coincided with — and, Prabhakaran said, was made possible by — a $113 million renovation and upgrade at HealthAlliance Hospital that included a new state-of-the-art emergency room and medical imaging equipment. Earning the trauma center designation involved adding both clinical and administrative staff and establishing protocols for everything from the delivery of blood for transfusions to community-based accident prevention education programs.

“It required really the entire hospital to come together to be invested in this effort to achieve this designation,” said Prabhakaran. “It was more than a year in the making to make sure to make sure that we had all of these things in place and to go through a site visit from the Department of Health to ensure that we had these resources and infrastructure in place.”

Level III is the lowest tier in the state’s system of trauma care designation, so the most severely injured patients will still be transported elsewhere for care. But Prabhakaran said that patients would benefit from HealthAlliance’s integration with other trauma centers in WMCHealth’s 10-hospital network in the Hudson Valley. Those include a Level II trauma center at Mid-Hudson Regional Medical Center in Poughkeepsie and the Hudson Valley’s only Level I facility at Westchester Med in Valhalla.

Prabhakaran said WMCHealth has standardized systems that will allow patients stabilized in Kingston to transition more smoothly to a higher-level facility if necessary. Prabhakaran added that new telemedicine technology at HealthAlliance Hospital would allow clinicians there to consult remotely with specialists at Westchester Medical Center.

The trauma center designation could also help ease Kingston’s ongoing ambulance shortage. Faced with unacceptably long wait times for private-sector ambulance service, in recent months the Kingston Fire Department has been using two mobile mental health ambulances to transport patients directly to the hospital. Last month, meanwhile, Mayor Steve Noble and Fire Chief Chris Rea pitched to the Common Council a plan to expand the department’s ambulance fleet with the addition of two Advanced Life Support units and 16 new firefighters trained as EMTs or paramedics to operate them. Having a local trauma center could allow Fire Department ambulances to get patients to the hospital and return to service in minutes rather than making a longer trip out of town.

“It’s a big plus for us,” said Rea of the trauma center designation. “It’s going to help us keep our ambulances and our personnel in the city.”