WATCH: Dr. Matthew Grzegozewski, MRH Emergency Department Director, explains the role of CarePoint Health in the Emergency Room and how these physicians have helped to bring high-quality emergency care to the local community.

Dr. Matthew Grzegozewski

In early 2020, a group of emergency physicians from Denver started to provide their medical expertise locally in Craig at Memorial Regional Health. They came for the care, but stayed for the community.

These eight emergency physicians — sourced from CarePoint Health, a Denver-based physician group that connects rural communities with high-quality providers — make up the Emergency Department staff at MRH. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the Emergency Room and also provide medical direction for MRH’s Rapid Care.

Dr. Matthew Grzegozewski, medical director of the MRH Emergency Department, is one of the eight individuals staffed by CarePoint. He is also one of the five physicians who chose to make Northwest Colorado his home.

“It has been great,” he said. “I am amazed at how quickly we’ve been welcomed into the family, both here at MRH and within the community. Our goal is to ensure we’re serving the community well and that residents are happy with the services they want and need from us. We’re looking out for our neighbors, family and friends, and that’s what we came here to do.”

About CarePoint Health

CarePoint Health connects healthcare organizations with specialty healthcare providers. For more than 20 years, the group has offered providers in several service lines including emergency medicine, neurology, telehealth and more.

MRH opted to partner with CarePoint to expand high-quality emergency care services to the Craig and surrounding communities. All CarePoint physicians at MRH have gone through intensive emergency medicine residencies and have previous experience working in big-city hospitals.

“We’ve been doing this for years,” Dr. Grzegozewski said. “We have the confidence, experience and ability to care for people in rural settings, even if resources are more limited than they are in larger cities and at larger hospitals.”

“Rapid Care and emergency medicine are structured to treat a problem that has happened today,” Dr. Kipe explained. “They stomp out the fire burning today rather than manage the forest to prevent the fire of tomorrow.”

Meet the CarePoint Providers at MRH

How CarePoint works with local patients at MRH

According to Dr. Grzegozewski, at least one ER physician is working at MRH at all times. The CarePoint team allows MRH patients to have 24/7 access to a neurologist, 24/7 cardiology coverage and increased access to additional specialists.

In addition to Dr. Grzegozewski, other board-certified emergency physicians on the CarePoint team include:

• Kalen Abbott
• Renee Carson
• Gretchen Hinson
• Tinh Huyn
• Greg Faimon
• Sam Killian
• Don Stader
• Mary Wardrop

Even though Dr. Grzegozewski and his team are CarePoint providers, they are also employed by MRH. They have a genuine concern for the progress of the hospital and are invested in its continued growth and improvement — after all, this is their home, too.

“It’s really rewarding to be here,” Dr. Grzegozewski said. “We came to practice medicine, but we also wanted to live our lives in a rural mountain town. We moved our families here so we can continue giving back and stay committed to our community.”

Since Dr. Grzegozewski and the other CarePoint doctors arrived, emergency medical care has strengthened, and the quality of care and patient satisfaction has improved. Emergency room waiting times have decreased. The time from when a patient is first seen in the Emergency Department to when they are discharged has diminished.

The CarePoint team is proud of the impact they’ve made at MRH. Dr. Grzegozewski said they receive mostly positive feedback from their patients — both in the hospital and when they encounter patients out and about.

“Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” he said. “We are fortunate to have a compassionate group of doctors that care about our community. We appreciate getting to know patients on a more personal level and spending more one-on-one time with them than we would at a larger hospital.”

Part of the community

Dr. Grzegozewski said it was important for him to move locally and become a part of the community. Even though he’s lived in Colorado for the past decade, he wanted to experience the mountain town life in full while getting to better know the neighbors he serves.

The best care is provided when relationships are built and developed. He and his colleagues hope to continue building on the foundation they’ve built at MRH and to continue providing high-quality emergency care to Craig and surrounding areas.

“We’re not just here as part-time help,” he concluded. “We moved our families here and look forward to making the hospital as great as it can be. MRH administration and staff share our goals and mission in making present and future healthcare the best it can be.”