Lorelei, age three, a patient at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children for 8 weeks, uses art to help break up the day with an RMHC Child Life Specialist.

As the leading health care provider in the state, HealthONE is focused on more than just the quality of healthcare it provides to patients. “A visit to any one of HealthONE’s local facilities will likely reveal a mix of doctors, nurses, artists, and musicians each working to offer a different type of medicine. That’s because the company recognizes the healing power art can offer,” said Angie Anania Assistant Vice President of Marketing for HealthONE.

Given the positive emotional and physiological boosts interacting with art can have, HealthONE encourages patients, their families, and the staff to engage in art therapy programs. So whether it’s a nurse who brings her dance company in for movement therapy with patients, or staff and hospital visitors listening to a live harpist welcome them to the building, or even a young patient painting or sculpting with a volunteer, the arts find their way into all levels of the company’s service.

“Art therapy is so important for our patients, and we work to tailor the art to what each patient wants or needs in their individual journey,” said Mari Abrams the Director of Marketing at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s. On any given day, you might find a local musician playing or writing music together with a patient that expresses where the child is in his or her medical journey; you could hear a group of kids learning to play the ukulele; or you could join in on a textile or tactile art project using charcoal or watercolors. Art has a way of normalizing a child’s experience, Abrams said.

Art therapy is also an excellent way to break up the monotony of treatment, Anania said, and each hospital or facility has its own way of incorporating art into everyday treatment. So, in addition to the harpist at Sky Ridge Medical Center, Swedish Medical Center offers a musical therapy program, Rose Medical Center offers movement or dance therapy, and The Medical Center of Aurora has an amazing behavioral service program that includes art, music and yoga therapy that is patient-centric.

HealthONE’s commitment to the arts carries outside their facilities as well. The company is an active partner with dozens of arts and cultural institutions, including serving as a Patron Member of CBCA. “We are fully committed to the arts in every way. We have executives, doctors, and staff on arts boards, we engage with the arts with patients, and we provide financial contributions to so many great organizations throughout the area,” said Dan Davidson, HealthONE’s Vice President of Marketing and Community Relations. “We see healthcare as part of our quality of life, and our support of the arts is part of that as well.”

As part of its commitment to the area’s nonprofit community, HealthONE is an active supporter of the Business for the Arts Awards, which honors companies that share HealthONE’s commitment to uniting arts and business. The company also participates in CBCA’s Leadership Arts program, which is training the future leaders and board members on all aspects of board service. “It’s within our DNA to volunteer. We are involved in a wide variety of causes and events. We are supportive of people devoting their time to it; our leaders, our staff, our physicians want to get involved, and we want to support that,” Davidson said.