Heard on the Street: Mayo Clinic adds Colorado health-care provider as new member

The rapidly growing national health collaboration called Mayo Clinic Care Network has added a new member, this time in Colorado.

Yampa Valley Medical Centerof Steamboat Springs, Colo. and Mayo Clinic announced the collaboration Wednesday.

"The network connects Mayo Clinic and health-care providers who are interested in working together to enhance the delivery of locally provided high quality health care," says a clinic statement. "Yampa Valley Medical Center is the second hospital in Colorado to be invited to join the network."

"We share a common philosophy and commitment to improve the delivery of health care, and now our relationship through the Mayo Clinic Care Network will allow our physicians and providers to have access to Mayo's knowledge and expertise to best address the needs of our patients in northwest Colorado," said Frank May, Yampa Valley CEO.

Care Network members have access to "AskMayoExpert," a database coupled with "electronic consulting that connects physicians with Mayo Clinic experts on questions of diagnosis, therapy or care management."

Dr. Wyatt Decker, Mayo Clinic vice president and CEO of Mayo in Arizona, said collaborations with other health providers to improve patient care "has always been part of Mayo Clinic's culture, and the network helps us work closer together, in new ways, to enhance the lives of patients."

Nonprofit Yampa Valley Medical Center will remain a self-owned facility, as other Mayo Clinic Care Network members do. It is an acute-care hospital serving more than 51,000 outpatients annually in northwest Colorado.

The Mayo Clinic Care Network was launched in 2011 and now includes 26 hospitals of varying sizes in 12 states as well as Puerto Rico and Mexico. — Jeff Hansel