Denver Health Medical Center

Founded in 1860, Denver Health has become an elaborate, integrated safety-net health care system that is a model for the nation (Link to Annals of Internal Medicine article). With more than 900,000 patient contacts per year, the Denver Health system is comprised of nine family health centers, 12 school based clinics, the nationally renowned Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, the Rocky Mountain Center for Medical Response to Terrorism, Mass Casualties and Epidemics, the Denver Public Health Department, 911 Emergency Response for Denver County, as well as the Denver Health Medical Center (DHMC) and the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center. In January 1997, DHMC became a freestanding authority (rather than an agency within the city and county government of Denver). The institution's venerable name, Denver General Hospital was changed to Denver Health in order to reflect the broader mission of the organization. 

Denver Health Medical Center is a 398-bed, acute care, city-county Level I trauma center with a recognized special commitment to pediatric and adult trauma care.  DHMC is strongly committed to education, which is reflected by its affiliation with residencies in internal medicine and general surgery, as well as countless other surgical subspecialties and medical and surgical fellowship programs. The mission of the Denver Health System is to provide life-saving emergency medicine and trauma services to Denver and the Rocky Mountain region, as well as to provide access to quality acute, preventative or public health care services to the citizens of Denver County.  The Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center is a premier Level One Trauma System with one of the best trauma survival rates in the nation, acting as the major trauma receiving hospital for the City and County of Denver and the Rocky Mountain Region.

There are approximately 54,000 selected annual patient visits to the DHMC Emergency Department (ED).  Ambulatory and non-emergent adult patients are evaluated in separate clinics, which are open upto 15 hours per day. When these clinics are closed for the day, all patients presenting for evaluation are seen in the Emergency Department. The categories of patients seen in the DHMC Emergency Department are 44% medical, 37% surgical (primarily trauma), 11% pediatrics, 5% psychiatric and 3% OB/GYN. Twenty-five percent of patients seen in the ED are admitted to the hospital with 22% of those admitted patients requiring intensive care unit resources. There is a six bed monitored ED observation unit controlled by the Emergency Department staff where patients can be admitted for short-term observation and therapy, including chest pain observation. The Emergency Department was fully renovated in 1994. This renovation doubled the total Emergency Department size, adding a conference room, increasing the number of major trauma beds from three to six, and enlarging the Observation Unit to a six beds.

Pediatric Emergency Care

The Denver Emergency Center for Children (DECC) at Denver Health Medical Center opened September 2008. The DECC is a state of the art Pediatric Emergency Department including 19 monitored beds and 2 major resuscitation rooms. The DECC serves all pediatric medical and trauma patients, and is staffed by Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Emergency Medicine attendings, as well as pediatric nurse practitioners who work to fast-track patients so there is little or no wait time for children to be seen. The DECC features child-friendly rooms and waiting areas, private rooms that offer space for children and their families and reduce the chance of spreading infections, TVs in all patient rooms, and an ambulance bay to quickly transfer patients. 

Emergency Medical Services

Denver Health Medical Center also operates Denver's 911 medical emergency response system.  As one of the last remaining hospital based emergency medical systems, Denver Health is the sole paramedic base station for the entire City and County of Denver which encompasses an area of 165 square miles and a population of approximately 800,000, responding tomore than 66,000 emergency calls per year.  As such, the DHMC ED acts closely with paramedics in the field, providing prehospital medical command and coordination.