›› Some vacation. Thousands of people come to Aurora and spend time not by the side of a pool or on a golf course, but trying to get well. Tourism doesn’t always mean vacation, city officials say.
With premier medical facilities such as the University of Colorado Hospital, Children’s Hospital Colorado and the Medical Center of Aurora, and a host of revolutionary clinical studies available for patients, the city of Aurora has earned the status of a “health care destination.”
Patients and families from all over the world come to Aurora for first-rate health care services. About 7 percent of visitors that stay in Aurora’s hotels are here for medical reasons, according to a survey by Visit Aurora. That adds up to thousands of hotel rooms. Sometimes those patients and families find themselves in predicaments. Their medical stay could last days, weeks or even months, and Aurora is an unfamiliar city for out-of-town medical visitors.
Anxiety sets in. Where to stay? Where to eat? What is there to do during down time or for members of the family who are just along for the ride, not the treatment?
Aurora’s status as a world-renowned health care town has birthed a support group of hospital and hospitality professionals for patients and families who travel to Aurora from different cities, countries or continents.
Like a cadre of tour guides, this support group helps medical visitors navigate a new city while they’re undergoing often difficult health care struggles. The role of these cordial employees is not easy. It requires patience, a demeanor of constant congeniality and a will to make a positive difference in what can often be the worst time in a person’s life.
The process of catering to medical visitors is a phenomenon that hospitality and marketing wonks refer to as “medical tourism.”
The notion first gained popularity about a decade ago, when people had more disposable income to spend on things like plastic surgery. They’d travel to exotic locations and make a vacation out of the procedure, said Gary Wheat, president of Visit Aurora, the city’s nonprofit destination marketing organization. Nowadays, medical tourism has grown to become associated with medical consumers traveling to non-exotic, sometimes humdrum destinations (think Rochester, Minn., home of the Mayo Clinic) to receive top-notch or unique care. Aurora now makes the list of those elite destinations.
There’s a wide array of hotels in Aurora that provide discounts for medical stays, as well as temporary housing options that cater to different populations of medical visitors.
Families of children who are here for long medical stays can put up in Aurora’s Ronald McDonald House or Brent’s Place, which cater to families with sick children.
Some patients’ families, especially those who are accompanying a loved one going through cancer treatments, struggle with the idea of taking a respite alone. Morgan Davis, an oncology social worker at the University of Colorado Hospital, said little excursions are sometimes necessary for families.
“When a lot of our families get really overwhelmed, we say, ‘Why don’t you leave the hospital for a minute and breathe a little bit?’” she said. Davis often recommends dining at one of the authentic Mexican or Ethiopian restaurants in Original Aurora, visiting a museum or going to the National Western Stock Show in the winter.
But many families of patients are so caught up in the medical reasons for coming to Aurora that the only time they leave the hospital is to go back to their hotel room to sleep, she said.
Medical tourism has been on the upswing over the past two years after the city of Aurora made a conscious effort to attract and accommodate medical visitors through its Visit Aurora program, said Keith Peterson, director of guest services for the University of Colorado Hospital. Yes, “guest services.” Like concierges at hotels, Peterson employs nine people and an army of volunteers to field questions from “guests” (read: patients and their families) at the front desks of hospital buildings. Peterson’s paid staff has documented training in the hospitality industry. A few of them are retired airline employees, and others hail from the restaurant and retail industries.
Children’s Hospital Colorado takes the medical tourism idea one step further, by actually offering a full-service concierge, staffed by four full-time associates, who often double as personal assistants. Employees at the concierge often run errands for both patients’ families and hospital staff members, including picking up groceries or toiletries, getting clothes dry cleaned, taking a car to get an oil change and mailing letters or packages. There’s only one exception: the concierge staff has to stay within a 10-mile radius. “Other than that, you name it and we do it,” said Ryan Agar, hospitality manager for Children’s Hospital Colorado.
For some patients and their families, the fact that the state’s top-ranked hospital is in Aurora is a blessing, Peterson said. “The hospital is a big place, and it’s scary,” he said. “We do have lots of people who are coming from smaller towns and are completely overwhelmed in addition to whatever brought them here.” These are the type of folks who are easily overwhelmed by the tall buildings of downtown Denver, the over-stimulating Denver arts scene and the throngs of people on 16th Street Mall. They prefer the quieter Aurora ‘burbiness to the big city, and they take advantage of the plethora of open space the city offers, Peterson said. “I think being in Aurora, and Aurora being a gateway city, really helps these folks,” Peterson said.
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