Aspen Valley Hospital Elevates Healthcare with Community’s Support
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Deborah Breen, President & CEO Aspen Valley Hospital Foundation
When it comes to living healthy, Aspen Valley Hospital (AVH) leads the charge in the community by delivering exceptional and compassionate medical care every day. Last year, more than 75,000 patient encounters were managed by AVH – demonstrating the significant need for healthcare services locally. Ensuring hospital staff and physicians have world-class facilities, equipment and resources to match their world-class skills, remains a shared vision between AVH and the newly formed Aspen Valley Hospital Foundation (AVHF).
Since its inception in 2012, AVHF has launched a multi-faceted development program with a $60 million capital campaign at the forefront of its list of priorities. Supporters have responded very positively and have shown tremendous generosity. Capital campaign progress has now topped the $36 million mark, an extraordinary accomplishment that included an unprecedented $10 million gift from a very special anonymous donor. With a continued focus on inspiring other friends, grateful patients, neighbors and residents – both fulltime and part-time – to lend their support, AVHF is doing all it can to communicate the great need that remains, and the tremendous benefits philanthropic support plays in accelerating the hospital’s pace of progress.
The $60 million capital campaign will support the hospital’s extraordinary Master Facilities Project. With Phase I and II complete, the hospital has moved into construction of Phase III – the phase that will house The Resnick Family Emergency Department, a trauma treatment suite, a roof-top helipad, diagnostic imaging (including a new MRI) and a surgical suite. All of the project’s components address the significant limitations that are inherent in a facility that was designed and constructed in the 1970s, when the way care was delivered was very different than today. (Some long-time Aspenites may remember the previous hospital located at the base of Red Mountain, which replaced the original hospital of 1891).
This year, with 125 years of history behind it, AVH stands on the brink of completing new and much-needed facilities that will bring all of the clinical services in to space that supports today’s standards of care. Efficiency, privacy, safety, new technology, the shift from an inpatient to an outpatient population, and new treatment modalities that didn’t even exist when the hospital was constructed are all driving forces behind this project. The hospital relied on philanthropy 125 year ago, and today, philanthropy is equally as important. Just as the miners of the 1890’s gave a day’s wages for the construction of Aspen’s first hospital, today’s residents are also contributing to a modern-day hospital. The foundation has continued to communicate a very simple message: consider making a gift today that will support the healthcare needs of our community tomorrow. There has never been a better time to support our community hospital.
