Located in the Pavilion for Advanced Care at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Penn's Level 1 Trauma Center serves as a vital gateway for traumatically injured patients, offering vast resources, the latest technology, and expertly trained staff.
Having a Level 1 Trauma Center designation means that we have every available resource needed to provide total care for any aspect of severe injuries.
Need to Transfer a Patient
Penn Acute Care Education (PACE)
Penn Acute Care Education offers many surgical, critical care, and disaster & emergency educational courses, workshops, and conferences through the Penn Medicine Division of Traumatology, Surgical Critical Care & Emergency Surgery in Philadelphia, PA.
Accredited by the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation, our Level 1 designation provides many benefits to patients, including:
- 24/7 in-house coverage by top trauma, emergency surgery and surgical critical care surgeons.
- Readily available, in-house care from experts across 29 medical and surgical specialties.
- Rapid emergency response from PennSTAR, one of the largest and safest hospital-based air and ground transportation medical programs in the nation. Patients receive immediate access to Penn's Trauma Center with an estimated time of 30 seconds from ambulance entrance to trauma bay, and an estimated 20 seconds from the helipad to the trauma bay if patients are flown to Penn.
- State-of-the-art trauma unit featuring a 5-bay resuscitation area with immediate access to critical care treatment rooms equipped with the latest medical imaging and diagnostic equipment, including CT, MRI, X-Ray and ultrasound.
- The capacity to care for an extremely high volume of patients, in our new 178,000 square-foot, acute care building, the Pavilion for Advanced Care.
- Treatment at a prestigious academic medical institution that also serves as an educational resource for other trauma centers.
- Providing the latest innovations in trauma care through our exceptionally strong research program with grant funding from NIH as well as other top sources.
Built for Speed - The Trauma Center at Penn
Time is of the essence - This concept was at the forefront of our minds when the Trauma Center at Penn Presbyterian was built. Our building is designed to get a critical patient from the helipad to one of our trauma bays in just over 1 minute.
Facts About Penn's Trauma Center
Each year, Penn's Trauma Center treats close to 3,448 traumatically injured and critically ill patients with a 97 percent survival rate. We offer the most advanced specialty care in the region, resulting in exceptional patient outcomes that rank well above national averages.
Our Trauma Center has one of the highest rates of patient transfers in the region. In 2021, of the nearly 3,448 patients cared for, 742 were transferred to Penn Medicine from other hospitals. Of those, over 15 percent were transferred from other designated trauma centers.
Top injuries treated at Penn's Level 1 Trauma Center include:
- 26 percent Falls
- 33 percent Interpersonal Violence
- 21 percent Motor Vehicle
- 12 percent Other
- 5 percent Pedestrian
- 3 percent Motorcycle
Download a Fact Sheet for more information
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