St. Elizabeth/Common Spirit Hospital holds its Annual Foundation meeting in Fort Morgan

It was a packed room on Wednesday evening, on the second floor of St. Elizabeth/CommonSpirit Hospital in Fort Morgan, for the hospital’s Annual Foundation meeting. Following dinner, served by Jeff Carson and his great staff from the hospital cafeteria, the Executive Director of the Fort Morgan Community Hospital Association, Loren Boyett took to the podium to begin the meeting, focusing on various highlights from 2025. CommonSpirit operates 2,200 care sites in 24 states, and over the last year, St. Elizabeth in Fort Morgan has made major progress on the services that can be offered here locally.

CEO Jeff Swanhorst showcased some of the highlights, including the complete onboarding of many services, such as cardiology, imaging & radiology, and emergency services. Part of those emergency services include COPPER verification. COPPER stands for Colorado Pediatric Preparedness for the Emergency Room (COPPER) is a voluntary pediatric readiness recognition program for Colorado emergency departments. The program has two levels of recognition: Pediatric Prepared and Pediatric Advanced. The main difference between the two levels is the presence of a physician Pediatric Emergency Care Coordinator (PECC), which is required for Pediatric Advanced recognition but not for Pediatric Prepared. COPPER was developed by EMS for Children Colorado in collaboration with several statewide partners. The program strives to help emergency departments achieve a higher level of pediatric readiness by providing key resources, support, and education. They are also an accredited Chest Pain Center.

The hospital also made a $1million investment in equipment updates, hired 33 new employees, gave staff raises, provided on-site daycare, and offered on-site HR as well. St. Elizabeth also received a 5-star rating from Forbes, just one of ten hospitals in Colorado to get this rating. Surveyors gave the hospital only 20 findings, which is very low, with a lot of those findings just being minor fixes.

The community benefits, which include unpaid Medicaid & financial assistance, along with other miscellaneous services, amount to $12.2million. Among the other highlights, St. Elizabeth offers 24/7 hospital services, 24-hour staffed ED physicians, outpatient services, an urgent care clinic, and the Flight for Life base, with the helicopter medical transport being a positive gamechanger for the area.