Chris Dillmann / Vail Daily
Vail Health continued to meet financial challenges in 2024 while carrying out advanced scientific work, providing exceptional patient care and building unique construction projects focused on supporting the county of Eagle and surrounding communities.
“I think of our pillars of affordability, accessibility, population health and sustainability in four legs at a table that is there to serve our community,” said Will Cook, CEO of Vail Health , during Tuesday presentation on the zoom of the health of the state of Tuesday.
Last year, Vail Health received an employee engagement index of 89, with a participation rate of 90%, placing it in the upper quartile of the country.
“I cannot emphasize enough how our providers and our staff are great, and how hard we have worked not only to take care of our patients and their family members, but others,” said Cook .
Last year, construction was completed on the public-private partnership of Vail Health on housing for employees, Fox HollowBuilt by Breck Grand Vacations. Fox Hollow provides 90 dwellings in Edwards.
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“Although accommodation is always a problem that we all work collectively to try to solve, it is an example of a unique partnership which, in our opinion, moved things in the right direction,” said Cook.
At the end of 2024, Construction of the pre-COUR healing center was finished. The behavioral health treatment center for hospitalized patients with 28 beds allows residents of the County of Eagle and those of neighboring counties to receive treatment without going away from their communities. The Vail Health Behavioral Health hospital treatment center is on the right track to see its first patients in May.
In 2024, Vail Health received a plethora of awards in all its departments, from scientific innovation to patient care.
“Although we appreciate the distinctions, it really comes up with how much we appreciate taking care of people,” said Cook.
Vail Health is faced with financial challenges similar to other rural hospitals in Colorado
Like last year, 70% Colorado hospitals “currently have Und lasting operational margins“Said Cook. Out of more than 50 rural hospitals in Colorado, 85% have unsustainable operational margins. (While Cook said Vail Health is a rural hospital, he did not say that the hospital and his network had unstable margins.)
Budget deficits are largely caused because “spending growth continues to exceed income growth,” said Cook. “Expenditure is 40% higher than before Covid, and it’s a real challenge.”
Vail Health has spent “decades” to develop its reservations to allow expenses such as the acquisition of Colorado Mountain Medical and 200 million Dollars in behavioral health, said Cook, so the health system is not likely.
However, while Vail Health concludes some of his biggest projects to date, his leadership will draw attention more to improve the financial health of the hospital.
If Vail Health should stop taking funds today, he would be able to provide services for about 250 days before missing money.
“We would like to see this number increase a little,” said Cook. “Not only to ensure that we are safe and that we can remain independent, but also to allow us to continue to invest in our community.”
“I think we are reaching the right direction,” said Cook.
Innovation occurs everywhere “at Vail Health
Cook said Vail Health is “a health system focused on orthopedic surgery”.
“We are not only a mountain station where people come to visit, injure themselves and receive care. We are also a medical destination, “said Cook.
The doctors and staff of the Vail Health orthopedic branch are hyper focused on research, innovation and advanced medicine. The Steadman clinic is the most published orthopedic group in hip arthroscopy, and the Steadman Philippon Research Institute is currently a recipient of eight national research subsidies. One of the Institute’s projects works on fibrosis induced by radiation (scar fabric) in cancer patients.
“Research and innovation are really at the heart of what we do, and it happens everywhere,” said Cook.
In addition to orthopedics and cancer, Vail Health also supports innovation in the field of behavioral health. The frightening study is currently studying Impacts of heat and cold (think: Cold sauna and dive) on depression. The Optimize study, which should start this spring later, will test the potential of Psilocybin to treat depression.
“We have to find new ways to treat disease and disease,” said Cook.
Vail Health continues to focus on behavioral health
Behavioral health is “the real medical crisis of the century,” said Cook. “Not coche.”
In 2019, local leaders met and created Eagle Valley Behavioral Health to “transform” behavioral health treatment, said Cook. The non -profit organization, operating under Vail Health, has been working since since.
“We have started to move the needle now on how we approach the behavioral health crisis that tormented our valley and our state and really our nation,” said Cook.
In 2024, the Wiegers mental health clinicVail Health ambulatory center in Edwards, on average more than 4,000 visits per month after opening in 2023.
Construction on Pre-COUR healing center Enveloped at the end of 2024, and the job process for staff and providers began.
When the Center of Healing Precourt opens in May, Vail Health will locally offer a full continuum of behavioral health services.
What is the next step for Vail Health?
While Vail Health assesses his future as an independent rural non -profit hospital, he plans to continue to adopt community, state and federal partners.
“Collaboration is essential to solve big problems and continue opportunities,” said Cook.
In March, Vail Health took the response in crisis and worked with the school district of clinicians in schools, formerly worked under your center of hope. This change concerns “the global sustainability of these services,” said Chris Lindley, executive director of Eagle Valley Behavioral Health.
Nothing in the programs of your Center of Hope changes, surveillance only spends Vail Health, said Lindley.
This is part of Vail Health’s efforts to support its non -profit partners by serving as a “anchor institution”, taking advantage of its resources to support them, said Cook.
During the strategic retirement of Vail Health this summer, his leadership will discuss how the health system can better address health duration and healthy aging options, as well as the growing number of uninsured people who need care, and the challenge of providing specialized services in a rural community.
Although Vail Health offers the greatest variety of services he deems possible, some people must go to other hospitals to receive specialized care. “We will first make sure that we can offer high quality service, then we will make sure it is sustainable,” said Cook.
COOK underlined the pooling of resources with other independent hospitals nearby as a potential solution to continue to provide a diversified range of specialized care locally.
In addition to this, many rural health care systems find an increase in uninsured patients as extensions of the COVID era for the wearing of the registration of Medicaid and people are not reintegrating.
For those who are always eligible for Medicaid, Vail Health can help them reintegrate (and the health system accepts Medicaid, as well as most commercial insurance).
But for those who are no longer eligible and who still need care, Vail Health Leadership recently encountered leadership of Mountain family health centers on how to continue to provide care as the number of patients who are not insured increases .