DEVELOPING THE HEALTH CARE LEADERS OF THE FUTURE

Photo: Mia Novick and Bailey Klusack visit UCHealth to create the hospital room of the future.

DVANCED TECHNOLOGIES HAVE NEARLY LIMITLESS POTENTIAL

to change health care delivery, with technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality already making significant impacts. As a result, every aspiring nurse, doctor, or health care worker must have a strong grounding in technology. UCHealth is leading health care innovation in Colorado and serves as a major partner in St. Vrain, helping to educate the next generation of healthcare leaders.

In 2019, UCHealth and St. Vrain Valley Schools announced a long-term partnership to provide students with real-world, cutting-edge learning experiences in health care, and for those students to take a leadership role in influencing the health care of the future. Through a year-long design thinking challenge, students from St. Vrain’s high schools will take a deep dive into modern medicine, visiting UCHealth’s new Longs Peak Hospital in Longmont (home to numerous innovative health care technologies), its Virtual Health Center in Aurora, and its Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation facility in Denver. After learning about the medical care of today, students will work with physicians and staff to ideate and prototype the hospital room of the future at

the Catalyst. Together, the team will launch a mobile version of the experience in ST. VRAINNOVATION, St. Vrain’s new mobile future-ready innovation lab.

In addition, St. Vrain will continue its work on UCHealth’s Healthy Hearts initiative, an outreach heart health screening and preventive education program focused on educating students, families, and adults about how to live a heart-healthy lifestyle. Over the course of two days, the Healthy Hearts High School Program gives students a chance to learn about the human heart and cardiovascular health, take part in cholesterol screenings, and practice for real-life emergencies. In the past year alone, Healthy Hearts has served 10 St. Vrain schools and donated more than 100 volunteer hours.

Together, these learning experiences provide new and inspiring opportunities for today’s students. As Lonnie Cramer, President of UCHealth Longs Peak and Broomfield Hospitals, puts it, “I didn’t learn what I wanted to be until I figured out what I didn’t want to be. It was really pure luck that I stumbled into medicine. By providing experiences like this, we’re removing the element of luck and inspiring the next generation of healthcare leaders. I wish I had had an opportunity like this when I was in high school.”