Noah Nelson was showering after a workout when the symptoms struck: nausea, blurred vision, numbness in his lower arms. He called into work and went home to lie down. It was then he felt the most severe pain he’d ever felt – a piercing pain “like an ice pick shoved into my chest.” He went back to urgent care, this time at Intermountain Medical Center (IMED) in Murray, Utah. The team there, too, thought a heart attack seemed unlikely, but they administered an EKG just to be sure. The results were so off-the charts the team thought the machine might have malfunctioned. They got another machine and tried again. The results were clear: Noah was in ST-elevation myocardial infarction, or STEMI. After consulting with Dr. Harrison and the cardiology team, the urgent care team activated the STEMI protocol. An ambulance rushed Noah to the emergency room at IMED, and then quickly from there to the cardiac catheterization lab. Dr. Harrison met him there. Dr. Harrison’s work that day doubtless saved Noah’s life, but what stands out to Dr. Harrison is that, had it not been for the work of the entire team, from urgent care to the emergency room, none of it could have happened at all.
Japanese train conductors use a practice called Shisha Kanko, or pointing and calling, to keep passengers safe. The widely studied point and call method has shown that using our bodies and vocalizing our repetitive tasks reduces human error by 85%. After experiencing mislabeled specimens, the American Fork Hospital endoscopy team in American Fork, Utah began practicing point and call to make sure every specimen is labeled correctly. Learn how they transformed their workflow, eliminating errors and enhancing patient care.
Intermountain Health’s vast network of 68,000+ caregivers is a tapestry of talent and dedication. With so many roles, some departments may surprise you. When you think about healthcare, you might not immediately picture the team that maintains our helicopters. But even in this era of automation, it's dedicated caregivers who keep everything running smoothly. Each department reveals the diverse and inspiring work happening behind the scenes. We hope you'll enjoy getting to know these teams and learning about their dedication, wisdom, and passion for helping people live the healthiest lives possible.
When five-year-old McKinley's cartwheel turned into surgery and an overnight stay at Cedar City Hospital in Cedar City, Utah, she decided to turn her injury into a donation that would help future pediatric patients at Cedar City. Learn more about McKinley's motivation to inspire a mission of kindness in the article below.
We are celebrating National Donate Life Month with a big milestone in the adult organ transplant program – the average wait for a liver is less than a month and a kidney transplant has one of the shortest wait-times in the nation, averaging less than a year. In addition, Intermountain Health recently became the first transplant center in the west to join the 34 Lives program, where difficult to allocate kidneys are assessed by a new technique allowing surgeons a chance to rescue kidneys that would otherwise be unused. By embracing new cutting-edge technology, the Intermountain Transplant Program has seen a 385% growth in liver transplants from 2018 to 2024, making it the third-fastest growing program in the nation with better than national outcomes. “The success of Intermountain Health’s transplant program is due to all the passionate caregivers in the OR and in the clinic,” said Jean Botha, MD, medical director of Intermountain Health’s abdominal transplant program and Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital’s pediatric transplant program. “But it’s also due to the very gracious donors and their families, for saying, ‘Yes,’ to organ donation.”
Dr. Swink had no intention of becoming an oncologist. In her entrance interview for medical school, she remembers saying she was open to anything – she just knew she wouldn’t be going into oncology. Her mother went through a bout of cancer when she was a teenager. It just seemed too sad. By residency, she figured she’d be an internist. She got her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering, and internal medicine appealed to her desire to understand not just the parts, but the whole of the system. “But in my times of deeper reflection,” she said, “I realized that the patients I enjoyed and remembered most, that I was most excited to get up at 3 a.m. and round on – they were all cancer patients.” She wasn’t the only one to notice: When it came time to pursue a fellowship, her husband pointed out that she clearly had a special affinity for patients with cancer. She agreed. Oncology it was. It was just, she says, “the right amount of nerdy.” She now serves as medical director of Oncology at St. Mary’s Regional Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado, where she’s been since 2019. “In oncology, healing does not always mean cure,” she said. “Healing means helping a person live who they are, whatever the diagnosis and the treatment regimen. Helping them find their best selves, maintain their dignity, their hope, their love, so they can continue to be the author of their own story.”
At Intermountain Health, we are making significant strides in reducing our environmental impact, showcasing our dedication to sustainability and responsible stewardship. With a focus on sustainable practices—which impact the health of both our planet and our physical wellbeing—our amazing caregivers are already demonstrating their commitment to our 2025 Earth Month theme: Healthy Earth, Healthy Body. If you would like to learn more about our Environmental Health and Sustainability work, visit the link below.
Did you know? The number of Americans age 65 and older is projected to increase by 47% by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau. To meet the needs of this growing population, Good Samaritan Hospital in Lafayette, Colorado has officially opened their Acute Care for the Elderly (ACE) unit as of this month! ACE units have proven to reduce the length of hospital stays, lower costs, and decrease readmission rates. Additionally, patients cared for in an ACE unit typically return home with improved functional capacity and greater satisfaction with their hospital experience. “One of the unique opportunities we have at Good Sam is to reimagine what we do, and the care we provide,” said Kevin Jenkins, Good Samaritan president. “With change comes new opportunities, and we're going through a lot of change. Our challenge is to reimagine the healthcare that we provide, and to grow it to align with the community, and the ACE unit is a perfect example of how we reimagine healthcare.”
We are proud to be expanding the depth and variety of care we offer in Saratoga Springs! One of the fastest growing areas in Utah, the northern Utah County area will soon be able to access specialized care for OB-GYN, general surgery, orthopedics, sports medicine, ear nose and throat, audiology, urology, cardiology, pediatrics, gastroenterology, and other medical services thanks to a new Intermountain Saratoga Springs Multi-Specialty Clinic. The new Intermountain Health Saratoga Springs Cancer Center, which will be housed in the clinic, will provide medical oncology, radiation oncology, infusion therapy, and other cancer specialties. "Patients here will have access to the same cutting-edge technology that they would get in Salt Lake or at Utah Valley Hospital," added Bradon Barney, MD, Intermountain radiation oncology medical director. "That includes retreatments with radiotherapy or chemotherapy. It includes in-office procedures and treatment planning. There's not really going to be a disease site or a type of cancer that we won't be able to treat here."
We are thrilled to be recognized on Women Tech Council's 2025 Shatter List! The Shatter List showcases technology and innovation companies that are creating and enacting practices and cultures that remove the glass ceiling. The Shatter List is compiled by scoring companies on four factors critical to building high performing teams with meaningful measures that help women break and surpass the glass ceiling in technology, including: ➡️ Executive engagement ➡️ Company leadership initiatives ➡️ Community investment ➡️ Formal internal programs To learn more about their methodology and to view the full list of 2025 winners, please visit the link below.
