TRAINING SITES
At DHREM, residents train at multiple sites throughout the Denver-Metro area to gain a balanced experience of county, academic and community learning environments. Rotations at the Winter Park Clinic and Children's Hospital of Colorado create additional learning opportunities in orthopedics and pediatrics.
Denver Health Medical Center
Founded in 1860, Denver Health was initially a City Hospital created to serve the health care needs of the rapidly developing city of Denver. Since then, it has become an elaborate, integrated safety-net health care system that is provides hospital and emergency care to the public, regardless of ability to pay. With more than 900,000 patient contacts per year and caring for 33% of Denver's population, the Denver Health system is comprised of nine family health centers, 17 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.
Denver Health Medical Center is a 555-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.
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​There are approximately 120,000 selected annual patient visits to the DHMC Emergency Department (ED). 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. 15% of patients seen in the ED are admitted to the hospital with 20% of those admitted to the ICU. There is a 16-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.
Pediatric Emergency Care
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The Pediatric Emergency Department and Urgent Care Center (PEDUC) at Denver Health Medical Center is a state of the art Pediatric Emergency Department including 19 monitored beds and 2 major resuscitation rooms. The PEDUC serves all pediatric medical and trauma patients, and is staffed by Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Emergency Medicine attendings, as well as pediatric advance practice providers who work to fast-track patients so there is little or no wait time for children to be seen.
Emergency Medical Services
DHMC 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 to more than 90,000 emergency calls per year. As such, the DHMC ED acts closely with paramedics in the field, providing prehospital medical command and coordination.
Winter Park Medical Center
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The Denver Health Winter Park Medical Center is located at the base of Winter Park Resort. Within the medical center, there is emergency, urgent care and primary care dedicated to serving resort guests and staff, visitors and the community living in Grand County. Patients who present at the medical center are triaged to either emergency care or urgent care depending on their condition. Initially an elective, the Winter Park rotation was added to the permanent curriculum in 2019 per resident request. Due to the proximity to the Winter Park Resort, a high number of orthopedic injuries are seen and residents gain additional experience with reductions and splinting at this site.
University of Colorado Hospital
The Anschutz Medical Campus is a campus of institutions that houses the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the School of Dentistry, the School of Nursing, the School of Pharmacy, Medical Technology School, and the Child Health Associate Program. Internationally respected for its teams of medical specialists, the University of Colorado Hospital ranks among the top hospitals in the nation in many specialties per the U.S. News and World Report. It is a major referral center in the Rocky Mountain region. The University Hospital's mission is to foster excellence in medical education while actively supporting ongoing research in numerous areas of study.
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The University of Colorado Hospital is a 721-bed institution. The University Hospital is a Level I Trauma Center, a Nationally Certified Comprehensive Stroke Center, has a specialized burn ICU, and also maintains a state of the art, 24-hour cardiac catheterization laboratory.
The University ED serves as the point of entry for the regional burn center, regional transplant center, and nationally recognized cancer center. The new department, which opened in April 2013, is designed to place the patient at the center of care, decrease waiting, and optimize quality and the patient experience. It finished new renovations in 2024. There is a unique attending physician-intake system that manages minor complaints on arrival and initiates basic workup on other patients. The most critically ill and injured patients are immediately cared for in the main ED, staffed by attending, resident, and advanced practice providers, while less seriously ill patients are seen in the "Fast Track" area by attending and advanced practice providers. The department has 51 acute care beds in four zones, 10 front-end treatment spaces, and a 16 bed observation unit. The department annual volumes reach >110,000 with a 20% admission rate, with 20% of those admissions requiring ICU admission.
Saint Joseph Hospital
Saint Joseph Hospital (SJH) is a 365-bed, acute care, private hospital with its own residencies in Internal Medicine, General Surgery, OB/GYN and Family Practice. SJH offers residents a chance to experience Emergency Medicine in a large private hospital. The emergency department's annual census is over 56,000 visits. Saint Joseph Hospital and National Jewish Health and have formed a joint operating agreement to provide inpatient and outpatient care together in Colorado. This collaborative care model brings together two leading health care organizations with complementary cultures, missions and dedication to excellence to focus together on providing the best care possible. The strong outpatient approach and specialty expertise of National Jewish Health complements the focused inpatient expertise of Saint Joseph Hospital, increasing our ability to manage patients along the full continuum of care.
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Children's Hospital of Colorado
Founded in 1908, The Children's Hospital of Colorado (CHCO) is a 444-bed freestanding children's hospital which serves as the region's pediatric tertiary care center. It is also the primary training site for the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Consistently ranked as one of the best children's hospitals in America by the "U.S. News and World Report", CHCO is the regional pediatric Level I trauma center for the Rocky Mountain region. In addition, CHCO houses the Regional Pediatric Burn Center and the region's largest Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The Children's Hospital has a strong commitment to research into childhood disease as well as a sincere interest in medical training. This focus on education is reflected by the number of pediatric, family medicine, surgery, and emergency medicine residents who train at The Children's Hospital.
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The Children's Hospital Emergency Department sees over 49,000 patients annually. All pediatric emergency medicine physicians are boarded in pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine and full-time faculty of the University of Colorado Health Science Centers in the Department of Pediatrics. A fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at CHCO also trains 1-2 fellows per year.
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The Children's Hospital ED represents a high volume pediatric emergency experience in which Emergency Medicine residents direct resuscitations and manage acutely ill children.
Highlands Ranch Hospital
Established in 2019, Highlands Ranch Hospital (HRH) is a 93-bed acute care hospital providing a wide range of care for the communities of Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Roxborough, Sterling Ranch, Ken Caryl and Columbine. HRH offers residents a chance to experience a different patient population from our larger urban-centered emergency departments and provides an excellent compliment to our clinical curriculum. HRH sees approximately 30,000 patients each year in the emergency department with 23% of patients requiring admission and 4% requiring critical care services. The emergency department at HRH is staffed only by faculty and EM residents without advanced practice providers, and the EM residents are the only residents in the hospital allowing an excellent community experience.