• One of many additions coming to Alpine’s SV Health Clinic

Among the many health care services coming to the Alpine Clinic in January will be outpatient Cardiac Cath Lab, non-emergency services.

Dr. David Gonzalez, MD, FACC will help bring the new services to Alpine as an extension of what is offered at Star Valley Health (SVH) in Afton.

He helped with the start of the new cardiovascular services in June of 2022 at SVH.

“We started with general cardiology services, seeing office patients, ambulatory monitoring and just the basics of diagnostic cardiology,” he recalled of the work at SVH. “And now over the past two years, we were planning the cardiac cath lab in Alpine. That started as patient visits on Tuesdays and now that is expanding.”

He continued, “As far as cardiac procedures, we will do intervention or non-invasive procedures. They will be low risk and approved.”

He further explained as it relates to the Alpine services, “They have been approved over the last decade. This includes coronary procedures, such as stenting and insertion of pace makers and insertion of loop recorders. This will include a lot of services to start out.”

Dr. Gonzalez advised the changes will be helpful to the entire valley’s health programs. “It’s something I hope the valley will be extremely proud of. This is a rural area with a critical access hospital. Through the vision of our hospital board and CEO, they have elected to expand services.”

Speaking of the Star Valley Health Care program he advised, “It’s unique that we have ENT, OB/GYN, orthopedic surgery, and general surgery. And, now, to have a fairly full cardiovascular service line is pretty remarkable and we are extremely proud of it.”

The patient visits will continue in Alpine but be expanded with time, in addition to the cardiac services.

“As far as Alpine goes, we will continue to offer clinical services where we see patients,” explained Dr. Gonzalez. “We will also have diagnostic services that will be unique to Alpine and will be an extension of the hospital in Afton.”

The main open house scheduled to feature the new services is planned for Jan. 11 with tours by invitation only on Jan. 10.

“We encourage everyone to come out and see our beautiful new facility that I think that folks that live here in the valley will be extremely proud of,” Dr. Gonzalez concluded.

In addition to the Outpatient  Cardiac Services in Alpine, other additions include an emergency room, 24/7 emergency care, out patient-same day surgery with orthopedics, endoscopy and pain management, in addition to radiology, CT and lab support for the services.