News
Stronger together: How Eagle County’s health care workers rose to the challenge of COVID-19
The valley’s two largest health care providers, Vail Health and Colorado Mountain Medical, braced for the arrival of COVID-19 by stockpiling personal protective equipment before supply chains were overwhelmed and launching a system-wide high-level task force to solve logistical challenges as they arose. But when case numbers exploded locally in early March, there was no training to emotionally prepare for the reality of a novel virus that was highly contagious and deadly. Caitlyn Ngam, Ken Stephen, Julie Scales and Mark Joffrion share their personal experiences in dealing logistically and emotionally with the pandemic. Working together on the same problems, with the same goals in mind, often times with different approaches, brought Chris Lindley and Dr. Brooks Bock together — and the two organizations they represented. Colorado Mountain Medical’s merger with Vail Health in July 2019 had, on paper, already created a valley-wide health care network — but Lindley, Bock and Vail Health CEO Will Cook insist that it took a pandemic, of all things, to truly make the two providers inseparable. Each day brought new challenges, and with those challenges came spirited debates, brainstorming sessions and swift innovation. Making it to the other side of the pandemic, with the county rapidly approaching 30,000 total doses of vaccine distributed, is the light at the end of a tunnel in a trying year.
Read the full story on the Vail Daily >
More News
-
New!
More
Hot, Cold and Mental Health: Inside Vail Health’s CHILL’D Research Study
Depression, a mental illness affecting more than 18% of American adults, has no blood marker or single biological cause. It looks and feels different in everyone because the brain is a complex organ, and there is no single way that depression develops. Like many mental health conditions, depression can be treated through medical, pharmaceutical and alternative approaches. One promising avenue under study at Vail Health’s Behavioral Health Innovation Center is contrast therapy — combining sauna and cold plunge treatments.
-
New!
More
What to Expect Before, During and After a Colonoscopy
If you've been putting off a colonoscopy, you're not alone. It's one of the most recommended — and most avoided — preventive screenings in medicine. But here's what most people don't realize until after their first one: the procedure itself is a non-event. You're asleep. You don't feel a thing. What people actually dread, and what they talk about afterward, is the prep. The good news is that even the prep is manageable, and the payoff is enormous. Colorectal cancer is one of the most preventable cancers when caught early. A colonoscopy doesn't just detect it; in many cases, it stops cancer before it starts.
-
New!
More
Navigating Men’s Sexual Health: Erectile Dysfunction and the Bigger Picture
For something so common — and treatable — erectile dysfunction (ED) is still surprisingly difficult to talk about. “The biggest misconception men have is that there’s a mechanical or physical problem with them, and that’s usually not the case,” explains Dr. Joseph Dall’Era, a urologist at Vail Health. In reality, ED is far more nuanced and manageable than people realize. Understanding what’s happening and knowing when to speak up can shift the experience.