Chris Dillmann / Vail Daily
The opening of May 5 of Vail Health Pre-COUR healing centerNow, the only hospital behavioral health establishment between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah, is a dream come true for many.
Friday afternoon, a crowd of participants filled the installation hall for the ribbon cup of the pre-cicarization healing center. On the installations Second and third floorsSeven patients were already under treatment.
Amanda Precourt and his late father, Jay, led the accusation to build the establishment and “made what was a dream of a reality,” said Will Cook, CEO of Vail Health.
Precourt Healing Center is “a new type of hospital”, offering patient care first
Amanda Precourt appeared face to face with the failures of the mental health system.
“Like so many others, I know in the first hand what it is to fight against mental health,” she said during the Friday ribbon cup. “For a long time, I thought I had to manage it in silence. This silence almost cost me my life. “
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At the end of the thirties, Amanda Precourt survived a suicide attempt and was placed on a 72 -hour take at Vail Health, then called Vail Valley Medical Center.
“I was locked in a small emergency with two armed guards in front of my door,” she said. “The way people in the mental health crisis were treated in 2013 were inhuman. Not due to lack of care, but because the system was broken. ”
She spent 15 weeks in a residential treatment establishment outside Colorado.
“It was undoubtedly the most difficult experience of my life and also gave me something what I expected: clarity,” she said. “I realized that I had survived for one reason: to help others. To use my voice and work to a world where mental health is treated with the dignity and the care it deserves, and to do it here in Colorado. ”
Amanda Prectourt started working with Dr Marshall Thomas And George Wiegers On a new model of mental health care, “which combined clinical excellence with whole care,” she said. “For four years, we studied what was broken and imagined what could be. We wrote a white paper for A new type of hospital. “”
Twelve years after Amanda Precourt left the treatment of hospitalized patients, the cure center of Precourt has become this hospital.
“I realized that I had to survive to be able to save others,” she said. “It’s a 13 -year -old dream, and this team – you eliminated them from the park.”
The Center of Healing Precourt is the culmination of an effort led by the community, filling the last part of the puzzle with a chain of collaborative work to provide enveloping care to patients at all levels of the community, from ambulatory treatment to the immediate crisis.
“If you asked me what I think is one of the most weighted variables of our success equation, it is the power of the collective impact,” said Cook. “It really takes a valley.”
“What happened here in six, seven years, I really don’t think it has ever happened in this country. It is really a basic initiative where each partner has jumped and has done everything to arrive where he is today,” said Chris Lindley, director of population health and Executive Director of Behavioral Health for Vail Health. “Today, we have a great ambulatory system that is operational, we have what we think is the best psychiatric establishment in the country – this is our standard that we work – we have clinicians in schools, we have a 911 response mechanism for the crisis, we have so many non -profit things that do our incredible work.
Jay Precourt died in September 2024. “He could never see the finished hospital,” said Amanda Precourt. “I miss Jay every day, I know that his presence is there, and he is beyond proud. The precourt healing center is a living heritage. Since the very beginning, this project has been on partnership. Between families, health professionals, community leaders and generous donors. I am proud to devote this space not only in honor of my father, Jay, but in this magnificent community. ”
The Precourt Healing Center offers 28 beds for adolescents and adults, holistic therapy treatments
The pre-precourt healing center serves adolescent and adult patients with acute behavioral health attacks. Installation has 28 beds in total, to be divided between adolescents and adults, and provides holistic care To meet all aspects of patient behavioral challenges.
“The Center of Healing Precourt represents not only a place of care, but a trip of healing, goal and possibility. This moment is more than the opening of an installation. It is the realization of a rooted vision in the lived experience,” said Amanda Precourt.
The unique design of the installation separates the 28 beds into four two -story sections, although the two sections on each floor can be combined.
Each part of the establishment, from art to the walls with single bedrooms with its own bathroom for artistic, musical therapies and exercises with outdoor walls on each floor was designed with the patient’s experience and healing in mind.
“He is designated to feel different because he is different,” said Amanda Precourt. “Different from any other hospital framework that I have never met and that I will never meet. Each detail reflects the lived experience and the belief that healing is possible when people are welcomed with compassion, security and respect. ”
Construction of the installation started in September 2022. In less than two years, Vail Health has built the structure of three floors, hired 100 staff members ranging from psychiatrists to nursing therapists via patient care technicians to nutritional services and created a rigorous training program for all staff.
How did the first 11 days of the precourt center disappear?
The center opened on May 5, 11 days before the ribbon cup. “Honestly, it looks like 11 months,” said Lindley.
There were many unknowns in the opening of a new behavioral health establishment for hospitalized patients, so the establishment planned to open a slow roll and start by accepting only adolescents.
The first reference came for the first patient of the establishment on May 6. “This patient had the most extraordinary care,” said Lindley. “The whole team was involved – nurses, psychiatry, psychology, technicians, pharmacy – everyone surrounded this child and provided great care.”
But the team quickly learned that “the real need right now in the state was adults,” said Lindley.
During the first days, when the establishment was not open to adults, three local adults had to go to Denver to receive care for hospitalized patients. “It has broken all our hearts, because we want to do our best to allow no one to leave our community,” said Lindley.
So the team pivoted. At the end of last week, the installation was open to adults and adolescents. Of the seven patients treated in the establishment during the ribbon cut, six were adults.
On average, patients remain three days before being released in a network of ambulatory care. Friday evening, the establishment will have treated and unloaded in a network of ambulatory care its first five patients.
Although the establishment was slow to receive patient references at the start on Tuesday this week (the second open week of the establishment), “everyone realized that we were open. Since Tuesday, we have taken each patient that we can according to our staff,” said Lindley.
There are now more than 20 candidates on the waiting list for treatment at the precourt healing center.
The installation hires and integration of staff. Lindley said he expects to have 14 beds open to patients by June and operate at full capacity around mid-July.
“Real work is just beginning,” said Amanda Precourt. “We have built a advanced establishment, and now we will provide the necessary care not only to save lives, but also to transform individual and community identities, to give hope and a way to follow for those who suffer.