HEALTHY LIVING
Urgent Care Center provides same-day treatment By Estes Park Health For the Trail-Gazette
E
stes Park Health (EPH) brought true Urgent Care to the Estes Valley in May 2020. The center is located in the new building at 420 Steamer Drive, on Big Thompson Avenue(Highway 34), across from the Visitors Center, immediately east of the Safeway gas station. EPH has long felt that we needed to give residents and visitors other options, during and after regular EPH outpatient clinic hours, for those types of illnesses and injuries for which you don’t need an emergency department visit but that still need quick attention. After much planning, EPH was able to finally open the Urgent Care Center (UCC)in late May to give this service to the community. The Urgent Care Center provides treatment for immediate or same-day non-emergency for fevers, flu, coughs and colds, ear infection, minor broken bones, minor cuts and burns, altitude sickness, etc. The center has X-ray and urgent-care lab services. To differentiate it from Emergency Department (ED) Care, the ED provides medical care for all emergent life-threatening illness and injury including chest pain, signs of stroke, signs of heart attack, uncontrolled bleeding, major broken bones, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, severe abdominal pain, etc. (And of course, for the most urgent 6 • LIVE WELL ESTES | FALL EDITION
Estes Park Health / Courtesy photo
The 25 full and part-time staff includes front desk patient access representatives, a radiology tech, EMTs, community paramedics and nurse practitioners.
life-threatening emergencies, from our EPH Physician Clin- day, same-day, and scheduled you would always call 911). ic, the latter provides preven- appointments. That Clinic, at To differentiate the UCC tative and routine care, weekSee TREATMENT, pg. 18
