Before developing Type 2 diabetes, most people live with a condition called “prediabetes,” often for an extended period of time. Prediabetes means that blood-sugar levels are too high to be measured as healthy, but they’re not yet high enough to be considered diabetes. Prediabetes is extremely common in the United States. According to the Centers [...]

This year there are three vaccines to help keep you and your loved ones safer from the triad of dangerous respiratory viruses that start spreading during the colder months—influenza, COVID and RSV. Heath Perdue is a Registered Nurse and Infection Preventionist for Prowers Medical Center. It’s his job to help keep the Lamar-area community as protected [...]

If you’re a woman between the ages of 18 and 44, scheduling your annual check-up should be on the top of your to-do list, said Prowers Medical Center Family Nurse Practitioner Kelli Bitner. Why? “It’s important for female patients to have an annual wellness exam to identify health issues that may not have surfaced yet,” [...]

Did you know that women who have regular mammograms are more likely to have breast cancer detected sooner, are less likely to need aggressive treatments like mastectomy and chemotherapy, and are more likely to be cured if they do develop breast cancer? Prowers Medical Center offers screening and diagnostic mammograms, including 3D mammography—the imaging method [...]

The Prowers Medical Center pharmacy is a hospital pharmacy. That means it only fills medication orders for patients being cared for on-premises. It may operate behind the scenes, but it’s a busy place. Led by Director of Pharmacy Robin Thacker and including Clinical Pharmacist Ray Luna and two Certified Pharmacy Technicians—Katie Kurtz and Bryana Carter—the [...]

When you think of your favorite physical therapist, how do you visualize them? Does the phrase “always on the move” sound about right? Although the Rehabilitation Department is full of these amazing, busy professionals, sometimes they, too, need a little help. So, we’ve recently welcomed traveling staff to assist them with their growing caseload. “As [...]

September is Suicide Prevention Month, but preventing suicide is a community effort all year long. The more we are: • aware of the signs of suicidal thoughts and planning, • comfortable talking with one another about suicide, and • knowledgeable about what we can do if we think someone may be suicidal, the more effective [...]

When our bodies are infected by a bacteria, virus or other pathogen, our immune systems respond. They send a squadron of special proteins called antibodies to fight off the intruder. Thank goodness for antibodies! But sometimes our immune systems malfunction. Instead of battling the bad infection, our antibodies can sometimes trigger inflammation throughout our bodies. When [...]

As Prowers Medical Center enters the third year of a six-year project designed to address needs identified by our patients and this community in a needs assessment deployed in December of 2021, we are already seeing successes from several programs and getting ready to launch additional initiatives.“We are working to better support patients with all aspects [...]

In 2022, 1,799 people fatally overdosed in Colorado. Fentanyl was present in more than half of these deaths. Prowers County is not immune from this epidemic. According to the Prowers County Coroner’s Office, in May 2023 Lamar saw two suspected lethal fentanyl overdoses in a twoweek span. According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, [...]