As the sole anesthesia provider in Grand County, Katie Hornbaker is no stranger to hard work and long days. Despite her often grueling schedule, Hornbaker is known for her caring attitude and her love for the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe absolutely loves her job and continues to be touched by all of the people that she\u2019s interacted with here in the county,\u201d her nomination said.<\/p>\n
In her work, Hornbaker tailors her care to each patient, including working to provide opioid-free anesthesia as a member of the Society for Opioid Free Anesthesia.<\/p>\n
\u201cKatie has helped Middle Park Health become the first hospital in the state of Colorado to be entirely opioid free in anesthesia services during surgeries,\u201d according to her nomination.<\/p>\n
What made you choose to live and work in Grand County?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s been a dream of mine to live in Grand County almost my whole life. I visited a dude ranch in Colorado when I was 4 years old and I saw a wrangler get thrown from his horse. I turned to my parents and told them that was going to be me one day. Obviously, I\u2019m not a wrangler, but living here is a dream come true.<\/p>\n What kind of future do you see for your industry in the high country?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m very excited for the continued growth of healthcare in Grand County. With (Middle Park Health\u2019s) hospital expansion plans, the end goal is to be a one-stop shop and help take the burden off patients getting care. <\/p>\n How has COVID-19 changed the way your industry does business?<\/strong><\/p>\n We have new, extra precautions we have to take. As a critical access hospital, we were able to continue elective surgeries, but that did slow down a bit. <\/p>\n Who is your hero and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n My parents are definitely my heroes. My dad is the epitome of the hardest worker and always putting his family and work before anything else. I learned my work ethic from him. He\u2019s a trauma surgeon and anytime, whether it was Christmas Eve or one of my athletic games, if there was a patient need, he was always quick to get there \u2026 He recently retired at 71 and he was still working 60-70 weeks up until the day he retired. <\/p>\n My mother was a neonatal nurse and she is the most patient person and also an extremely hard worker. I\u2019m so fortunate to get qualities from both my parents that shaped my career because if I didn\u2019t have either of them, I\u2019m not sure I would have felt anesthesia is my calling. <\/p>\n What advice or encouragement would you offer a young professional trying to make it in the county?<\/strong><\/p>\n The best advice for someone entering the healthcare community in Grand County is just making a commitment to being a life-long learner because, being in a rural community, the patients\u2019 needs change and we need to tailor our care. It\u2019s just not cookie-cutter and you\u2019re required to wear so many hats in a rural community. You have to be open to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the sole anesthesia provider in Grand County, Katie Hornbaker is no stranger to hard work and long days. Despite her often grueling schedule, Hornbaker is known for her caring attitude and her love for the community. \u201cShe absolutely loves her job and continues to be touched by all of the people that she\u2019s interacted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-14 10:35:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}