The Park Hospital District Board of Directors is poised to determine the future of Estes Park Health. An agreement for UCHealth to acquire or otherwise manage the hospital was presented for approval on May 15, 2025.
The agreement runs to more than a hundred pages, and more will be added in the future, but no provision is more significant than the creation of a new Board of Directors for the hospital, to be known as the UCHealth Estes Valley Medical Center.
Bylaws for the EVMC Board of Directors have not yet been written, so the extent of its authority remains to be determined. At the community meeting held on May 8, 2025, by the PHD Board with invited guests from UCHealth, the UCHealth executives assured the community that EVMC would be managed similarly to their other 14 hospitals.
That would mean that the EVMC Board of Directors will determine policies for the hospital and clinics that comply with the UCHealth system’s policies.
At the May 8 community meeting, UCHealth executives committed to an emphasis on patient care over revenue, and detailed a long list of services they offer and support at other UCHealth facilities. These include behavioral health services, end-of-life care, financial support for staff education and training, telemedicine services, exit interviews, and employee satisfaction surveys, all of which will be welcomed by employees, patients, and the community at large.
The responsibility for integrating these and other services will fall to the new EVMC Board of Directors.
Therefore, the selection of the members of the EVMC Board of Directors will be of overriding importance.
The stated plan is that two members will be selected from within UCHealth, two from the current Park Hospital District Board, and three from the Estes Park community.
The UCHealth executives clarified further that they would look for diversity in expertise on the Board. People with a business background were specifically mentioned.
Like any other not-for-profit organization, the Estes Valley Medical Center will not survive if it cannot pay its expenses. Staff receive salaries, the electric bill must be paid, and the building will eventually need a new roof.
Funding medical services is far more complex in 2025 than when the Park Hospital District was formed in 1968 and the hospital began operations in 1975. And even though the community supports the hospital with a mill levy, Estes Park Health has lost money for years.
For too long, however, decisions about services at Estes Park Health have been made by studying the bottom line instead of listening to the needs of the community. It was the members of the PHD Board over the past four years who made critical decisions that impacted patient care, including:
- Inpatient pediatrics was losing money. It was eliminated.
- Obstetrics was losing money. It was eliminated.
- Long-term care was losing money. It was eliminated.
- In-home hospice and home health care services were losing money. They were eliminated.
- Physical therapy and specialty clinics were moved into a space where they share a waiting room with Urgent Care patients.
Reading the EPH press releases and listening to PHD Board meetings, it becomes apparent that these and other decisions by the PHD Board have been made primarily on financial considerations. Clinical considerations have been secondary. No input from the community was invited or allowed.
If the new EVMC Board continues to employ the leadership and decision-making style of recent PHD Boards, the promise of those valuable services available from UCHealth may not be fulfilled.
It all depends on who the five community-nominated members are, and that depends on how they are chosen. When asked how the new Board members will be nominated, the UCHealth executives did not have an answer.
UCHealth will select two members of the EVMC Board. Presumably, they will be people with previous experience, and based on some of the comments made at the meeting, they will have management or business backgrounds.
Two members are to come from the PHD Board, although it has not been clarified if this means the Board seated at the time the agreement is signed, or at the time they are to be selected, some time in the future. How those two would be chosen has not been determined. It is also unclear if the two individuals will be members of two Boards.
Three members will come from the community, but the mechanism for their selection has not been decided either.
Because health care in the Estes Valley will be determined for years to come by the new EVMC Board, the residents of the Park Hospital District, who are the people who use the hospital and clinics and who pay the mill levy, should have a say in the selection of all five of these individuals.
We need Board members with the following skills and attitudes:
- People who know how hospitals and healthcare work.
- People who know what the Estes Park community needs, and will advocate for it.
- People who can communicate openly and honestly with the people of Estes Park.
- People who will encourage input from the community on important healthcare decisions.
- People who have experience serving on not-for-profit Boards.
- People who will support Board meetings that are more than scripted presentations.
Community members willing to devote their time, energy, and expertise to serving on this Board should be allowed to offer their names for consideration. The League of Women Voters, the Estes Valley Voice, and other local groups have demonstrated the ability to organize forums for candidates to express their views and describe their backgrounds.
Nominations for the EVMC Board will only reflect the needs and priorities of the community if the community has a voice in their selection.
I had colon cancer which was treated through the team at UCHealth. I could not have asked for a better team or hospital system to work through. Estes Park will be very well served by this hospital.