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New Vail hospital will drastically reduce transportation time for critical patients

By September 4, 2020 | updated 5 years ago

VAIL, Colo. — It has been more than three decades since Vail Health expanded its hospital in Vail, but that is changing after work done over the past five years.

Chief Operating Officer Amandea Veit said Vail Health has been building a new hospital to add space and services, and to speed up emergency care.

“This is going to be a huge project for us,” Veit said. “We’re going to cut out some time for those really critical patients.”

To speed up the process, a new east wing of the hospital will have a rooftop helipad.

Currently, critical patients are flown into a helipad off Frontage Road, then loaded into an ambulance and driven to the hospital.

The process adds more than 30 minutes onto a trip to the emergency room,

“When you are in a critical situation, whether it’s a mom and baby being born to early, or a heart attack or anything else a major, 30 to 45 minutes is very critical,” Veit said.

With the new rooftop helipad, patients will be loaded into an elevator with direct access to a new, larger emergency room that’s also being built.

It’s a process that takes only minutes that will potentially save a lot of lives. The east wing project total cost is about $194 million. It will be open in November. Just in time for skiers, snowboarders or anyone else who might need emergency care.

“As much as people like to come to the mountains and play, sometimes they get hurt and we need to take care of them,” Veit said.

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