St. Francis Hospital has seen a “slight increase” in trauma patients since Evanston Hospital downgraded its capacity to treat the most severe trauma patients six months ago, a St. Francis official said.

Evanston Hospital, 2650 Ridge Ave., scaled downed its trauma center rating from level one to level two in June.

The downgrade leaves St. Francis, 355 Ridge Ave., as Evanston’s only hospital with a level-one trauma center rating, said St. Francis Director of Public Relations Christine Rybicki.

Those classified as trauma patients usually have very low blood pressure or wounds to the neck or torso. Based on the severity of the wounds, patients may be classified as either level-one or level-two trauma cases. Victims of gunshot and stab wounds, as well as car-accident victims, usually are classified as level-one trauma patients, although that is not not exclusively the case.

Evanston Hospital spokeswoman Gail Polzin said there have been no complaints from the community since the hospital’s downgrade. Rybicki said St. Francis has no problem handling the small increase.

“We have an excellent team, and we have been able to handle it so far,” Rybicki said. “We’re keeping the trauma status as a community service. No other hospital in the community provides it, and we believe that this is what the community needs.”

Hospitals can be classified only as level one or level two. Maintaining level-one status entails paying hospital staff who must be available at more immediate notice than staff at level-two hospitals. Because the staff can provide a faster response, level-one hospitals can receive more severe patients.

Level-one trauma patients usually require much more expensive treatments for which the hospital is not necessarily going to be reimbursed, Rybicki said, noting that some treatments can cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The downgrade at Evanston Hospital, however, had nothing to do with cost. The hospital did not receive enough level-one patients to justify keeping that status, Polzin said.

“The emergency department is very busy, and functionally it doesn’t change how we work or how we offer services to the community,” Polzin said. “We’re not providing any less service to the community than we were before.”

Since 2002, Evanston Hospital has received 40,000 emergency room visits. Only 30 of those qualified as level-one trauma, according to Polzin.