Historical Milestones

The idea for a hospital in Estes Park was first publicly expressed at a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

The Park Hospital District, a special tax district of Larimer County, was formally established.

Roger Knutsson, a long-time summer resident, donated $100,000 to the newly formed Park Hospital District as a memorial to his late wife Elizabeth.

The Elizabeth Guild Auxiliary was established to raise funds for the hospital district.

A bond issue was passed and construction began on a 16-bed facility.

The Elizabeth Knutsson Memorial Hospital was dedicated and the doors opened to the community on April 15, 1975.

Professional life support service staffed by EMTs and paramedics was established. 24-hour ambulance service was added.

Prospect Park Living Center (later Estes Park Health Living Center) a skilled nursing facility was established.

Estes Park Home Care (now Estes Park Home Health Services) was established. The services include medical and non-medical care.

The name was changed to Estes Park Medical Center to reflect expanded services.

Hospice of the Estes Valley (now Estes Park Health Hospice Care) was established.

The Emergency Department wing was added.

A helipad was installed for emergency air transport. The ambulatory medical office building (now Estes Park Health Physician Clinic) opened and the laboratory was expanded.

The New Life Center (now Estes Park Health Birth Center) was built.

The Radiology Department was expanded to include a portable CT scanner, individual ultrasound room, and a mammography room.

Hospital inpatient rooms were refurbished.

Estes Park Medical Center celebrated its 30th anniversary. The Board of Directors made the decision to expand the facility and a bond issue was brought to the district voters. The voters approved the issue.

Bonds were sold and the building project started with a groundbreaking on April 3, 2006.

The $25 million dollar bond created a new front wing, new surgical services department, new inpatient area, new birth center, new outpatient clinic, new lobby and front entrance, and more.

The Park Hospital District Board of Directors voted to approve expansion of the emergency department.

The emergency department underwent a major remodel and expansion to create nine rooms, including three new trauma bays and a triage room.

• EPMC’s first Picture Archival System (PACS) was installed in the radiology department.
• Barcoded medication methods began for optimal patient safety.

Three houses to the north of the Medical Center were purchased for on-call staff and the upper parking lots were added.

• The Jean Marquart Digital Imaging Suite opened with CT and MRI services. This was the first fixed MRI services for EPH -- previously, EPH was served by a once-a-week MRI truck. This was the first fixed CT services for EPH -- previously, emergent CTs had to be stabilized and sent to other hospitals on the Front Range. 
• The great flood of September 2013 closed off Estes Park, washed away the two primary highways, shut down communications, and damaged the town infrastructure. EPMC provided services uninterrupted throughout the days and months of the disaster. Helicopters brought visiting specialists in. Emergency rebuild by the state allowed Highway 36 to reopen in December.

Photo from EPTrail.com

• The New Life Center became a designated Baby Friendly© Hospital.
• X-ray room #2 was completely rebuilt with new equipment.
• A town-wide communication outage gave the Town of Estes Park the motivation to create better fiber redundancy by moving forward with a town-owned broadband utility study.

• X-ray room #1 was completely refurbished with new components.

• Home Health/Hospice department moved to an iPad-based electronic health record system (Brightree) to greatly increase efficiency in documentation.

• The town voted to approve the project to study town-owned broadband as a utility.

• The Medical Center received its first accreditation from DNV-GL.

• Estes Park Medical Center became Estes Park Health to better reflect the continuum of care from the start-of-life to end-of-life.

• Estes Park Health performed a major pharmacy remodel/upgrade.

The Epic Community Connect UCHealth-hosted electronic health record launched, combining hospital, emergency department, and ambulatory clinic medical records into a single patient chart.

• The freestanding Estes Park Health Urgent Care Clinic opened. This was Estes Park’s first true urgent care center. Rehabilitative services and some specialist services were moved to this building on Big Thompson Avenue (Highway 34). 
• 3-D mammography (tomography) was installed.
• Several negative pressure rooms were added to the inpatient wing and the Emergency Department to provide proper care for potential COVID patients.
• Telehealth was launched for the first time at EPH to provide patients the opportunity to interact with their physicians during the COVID crisis.
• New respiratory illness analyzers were added to the lab to provide COVID fast turnaround time.
• EPH and the entire town of Estes Park were evacuated by mandatory order, due to the approaching North Troublesome Creek Fire that came over the Continental Divide on October 22, EPH reopened most services about one week later.

• Two new redundant hematology analyzers were added in the lab.
• A second COVID fast-turnaround analyzer was added for capacity and redundancy.
• The COVID crisis, Colorado fires of 2020, and other factors led the EPH Board, after months of deliberation and study, to vote to close the Living Center and shift focus to core hospital services for long-term survival.