Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was named a Level 4 epilepsy center — the highest available ranking — by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers for its advanced medical care options, according to a June 21 DHMC press release. DHMC is the only northern New England hospital to have such a distinction, according to the press release.
As a Level 4 center, DHMC provides a higher level of diagnostic monitoring as well as more advanced medical and surgical options, according to DHMC Media Relations Manager Rick Adams. DHMC’s epilepsy program also offers clinical trials and support for families and patients, he said.
The Level 4 designation is given to hospitals and medical centers that “provide the more complex forms of intensive neurodiagnostics monitoring, as well as more extensive medical, neuropsychological and psychosocial treatment,” according to the organization’s website. These centers also offer complete epilepsy evaluations, surgical procedures and more complex operations which can include the use of intracranial electrodes, according to the website.
DHMC’s epilepsy program has operated at its current level of service for several years, Jobst said. The program qualified for the NAEC’s Level 4 designation by demonstrating the efficacy of its treatment methods — a process that lasted about a year, she said.
“What we do is basically [treat] patients who have failed all medication,” Barbara Jobst, director of DHMC’s epilepsy program, said.
In contrast, Level 3 centers provide more basic medical, neuropsychological and psychosocial services and neurodiagnostic evaluations, according to the NAEC’s website. Third-level centers perform less complex epilepsy surgery and do not offer intracranial evaluations.
DHMC provides epilepsy services to patients from New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, Adams said.
“Because we are a rural center, the problem is we don’t have a city around us so all the patients have to come from very far to see us,” Jobst said.
Jobst said she hoped the Level 4 recognition would give the program national and international recognition, increasing the number of referrals to DHMC’s epilepsy program. However, Jobst said she was unsure how it would affect the number of patients from northern New England.
“Because we are already covering this area widely, it’s a hard question of whether we will really increase our numbers, because our patients are already coming from far away,” she said.
Several hospitals in Boston — including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston — have Level 4 centers as well. The Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass., Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y., and Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I. also provide Level 4 services.