Mountaintop Medicine from Estes Park Health: Waves of Hope — Help the EPH Foundation Fall Campaign
Funds will help buy new cardiac ultrasound machine
Carolyne Boettger of Estes Park recently had an important test at Estes Park Health. It’s a cardiac ultrasound, also known as echocardiography. Carolyne has atrial fibrillation. Her doctors are monitoring her condition to see if there are any changes.
“I know when I go into A-fib,” she remarked “You can tell that it’s an irregular heartbeat. It’s been on and off. It isn’t all the time. It’s been controlled mostly through medications. I have had two ablations in the past. I have had several cardio versions when it wouldn’t snap out of it. Now there is an a-flutter condition, too, that’s all part of this whole thing. It’s very simple. They just run the stuff where they need to look at things and it comes up on a screen for them. Totally painless.
Tonya Fitzpatrick is a cardiovascular sonographer at EPH.
“I do ultrasounds of the heart and ultrasounds of the arteries,” Fitzpatrick explained. “We’re looking for narrowing of the arteries, how well the valve is working, the valves in the heart, how well the heart squeezes, so the function of the heart.”
The 20-to-30-minute exam yields a wealth of information for cardiologists like Dr. Chad Stoltz at EPH.
The cardiac ultrasound machine at Estes Park Health is almost 10 years old. It’s nearing the end of its life. Now the Estes Park Health Foundation is running a campaign to raise money to replace it with a state-of-the-art model.
Fitzpatrick performs five to eight of these exams four days a week at Estes Park Health. She said she is excited about the possibility of a brand-new machine.
“The images are much better, she noted, “and we’ll have the capability of doing 3D. I’ve seen a lot of patients here in Estes Park. From my experience, they’ve all been very grateful for the work that’s done here in the cardiology department. So, they would benefit from a new machine with optimization, maybe even 3D. They deserve the best of the best.
For patients like Boettger, who rely on Estes Park Health for many of their health care needs, she is in favor of the Foundation raising money for a new cardiac ultrasound machine.
“For me, it’s very important,” Boettger stressed. “Technology changes so fast that if you’re not keeping up, you really have a problem. One of the reasons we picked Estes Park to retire to was because it had a hospital and because it had a well-rated hospital. I have gotten excellent care all the way through. It is very important to me that I can continue to get that I can continue to get the care up here.
The EPH Foundation fall fundraising campaign is called “Waves of Hope.” For more information about this project and to donate, log on to cardiac – Estes Park Health. Estes Park Health. Mountaintop Medicine, Quality Care.