Dave Green, a St. George, Utah resident, was on his way from North Carolina to Hawaii with his wife, and while packing and preparing, he started to feel dizzy and have some double vision. When his symptoms didn't subside, he called Intermountain Connect Care, and the provider recommended he be seen as soon as possible. “We went to an urgent care in Hawaii and they sent me immediately to the ER. After a battery of tests, we learned I’d suffered a stroke.” When symptoms of illness arise it can be tempting to wait a few days to see if they subside before making a doctor’s appointment. While that tactic may work for things like a cough or sore throat, when it comes to loss of vision, arm or leg numbness or weakness, loss of speech, or difficulty walking, the clock is ticking. The time to see a doctor is now. “We’re never going to condemn someone for coming in for ‘too small of a problem,’” Dr. Brett Christiansen, medical director for emergency medicine at St. George Regional Hospital and executive officer for Intermountain Southwest Emergency Physicians, said of those who might feel awkward going into the ER for a stroke symptom that exhibited and then subsided. And Dave concluded, “You don’t know if it’s a stroke until you do the testing. I learned that it’s better to err on the side of caution. I’m so grateful for the many caregivers at St. George Regional who have helped me recover. I’ve still got a ways to go, but because of their great help, I’m doing so much better.”
Congratulations to Keyona Cole, chief nursing officer for Intermountain Health's Desert Region, for being recognized as one of Becker's Healthcare's 231+ Black healthcare leaders to know for 2024! 🎊 The leaders featured on this list are shaping the patient experience, educating and training the next generation of healthcare providers, and furthering equity and inclusion. Keyona oversees patient care delivery at St. George Regional Hospital, Cedar City Hospital, and Garfield Memorial Hospital in southwest Utah, along with 125 clinics in the Las Vegas and Utah area. She is committed to the our health system's priorities of quality, safety, and equity. In her time serving as one of our system's DEI leaders, she was a major partner in creating our medical assistant program, which was designed to provide applicants the necessary training they need to pursue a career in healthcare, regardless of their financial situation. This has greatly contributed to our mission to develop and diversify our workforce.
We recently celebrated a Milestone in Medical Research at St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings, MT!🌟 Our dedicated research team has reached an incredible milestone with 800 patients enrolled in therapeutic trials. Bringing cutting-edge therapies closer to home for Montana and the region, we're proud to offer access to innovative treatments at St. Vincent. Director of Research Operations, Matt Adler, reflects, 'We get to be part of helping patients and potentially changing someone else’s life in the future by developing new treatments.' From oncology to neurosciences, diabetes, and orthopedics, our patients benefit from groundbreaking trials tailored to their needs.
Social worker Eli Menet may not consider the extra care and work he gives to patients and team members going the extra mile. He just finds it 'the right thing to do,' he says. However, Garfield Memorial Hospital patients, caregivers, and the community he works with have noticed he goes above and beyond expectations regularly, and they are adding up his extra miles as he puts in extra hours, rescues stranded tourists, or travels the rural roads of Utah to reunite loved ones. "Doing the right thing comes naturally to Eli. He doesn't hesitate to jump to action to help ease the burden and stress of patients and their families," said Garfield Memorial Hospital Administrator DeAnn Brown. Eli's extra miles continue to add up. He was chosen as the 2022 Garfield Memorial Caregiver Excellence Award winner and recently he was honored during a Desert Region Leadership Conference for his connection to the purpose, "We do the right thing." Whether Eli is spending a lifetime paying it forward or is simply dedicated to doing the right thing, his influence has been felt by his fellow caregivers, his community, and the patients he serves, from the smallest to the grandest gestures.
In celebration of National EMS Week, let's take a moment to honor and thank all EMS professionals for their commitment to providing prompt and skilled care in emergencies each and every day! 🚑👩⚕️👨⚕️ #NationalEMSWeek #ThankYouEMS
Our mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible begins with our caregivers and their families. At Intermountain Health, we are proud to support the personal, work-related, and community well-being needs of our caregivers through a variety of programs and resources, including our Be Well Program. Learn more about how our Be Well Program helps support our caregivers below. ⬇️ #CaregiverWellBeing #JoinOurTeam
Calling all new graduate imaging professionals and current imaging students! Come connect with our team and learn more about our health system, our facilities, our imaging new grad career opportunities, and more at our upcoming Imaging New Grad Virtual Open House! Participants will be able to ask questions and connect with our talent acquisition team during this live event. Date: Wednesday, June 12th, 2024 Time: 8 a.m. - 10 a.m. MT Location: Virtual via Microsoft Teams - a link to join will be shared with you after you RSVP Visit https://tinyurl.com/bdrc8kzp to RSVP for this virtual event today - we look forward to connecting with you!
We're happy to celebrate Zafiro Portillo Primera, a high school intern at Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver, CO, who is graduating from Arrupe Jesuit High School this month and has received the prestigious Daniels Scholarship. She has been accepted into the nursing program at Regis University. Portillo Primera is one of many students from Arrupe and Denver Public Schools who participate in an internship, mentorship, or job training program at the hospital each year. Saint Joseph’s Community Benefit team organizes five separate programs to provide job training and work experience in the emergency department, nursing, simulation education, the foundation and in physician clinics. In August, the hospital will add Project SEARCH which provides internships designed for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “These high school career education programs serve multiple purposes. They give students the chance to see options for careers that pay livable salaries, and they help grow the future healthcare workforce,” said Chuck Ault, Intermountain community benefit manager. The internship at Saint Joseph influenced Portillo Primera's decision to pursue nursing in college, she said. “I found it fascinating that medicine helps the human body heal itself,” she said. “Nurses play a huge role in interacting more with patients in an impactful way.”
A man in Texas needed an MRI. He called several providers in his local market for quotes, and all of them more than doubled the cost of an airline ticket to Utah, a hotel room and the flat scan rate of $550 at Tellica Imaging, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intermountain Health. Setting aside the price, just the fact that Tellica posts its pricing on its homepage challenges a market where, even in the face of transparency legislation, actual transparency is hard to come by. “We have treated patients from 22 U.S. states,” says Brad M. Isaacson, PhD, MBA, MSF, PMP, Tellica president and chief operating officer, “despite having locations in two states presently. The fact that we have people flying in from out of state to see us shows we’re providing immense value.” This was the original mission of Tellica: to make medical imaging more transparent and affordable – to a radical degree. “The creation of Tellica stemmed from a need to rethink care delivery, affordability and access to CT and MRI imaging exams,” says Nannette Berensen, Intermountain’s chief operating officer and founding board chair of Tellica. “Location, scheduling difficulty and cost are barriers for many.” In terms of patient experience, it’s a concept almost revolutionary in its simplicity: tell people how much it costs, and make it cost as little as possible. And it’s had an enormous impact.
Happy National Speech Pathologist Day! 🎉 Today, we celebrate the incredible impact speech pathologists have on our patients, helping them communicate more effectively and connect with the world around them. Thank you for all you do! #NationalSpeechPathologistDay
