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Web Site Offers Resources for Young, Old and Disabled People in Summit

March 8, 2010
Summit Daily News

FRISCO, Colo. — A website tailored to Summit County residents offers connections to a wide spectrum of information and services for families, seniors and disabled people.

The latest version of www.SummitCARES.org offers a bill tracker for following legislation through the state Capitol, safe online storage of medical records accessible by designated users, educational databases and more.

At a public launch for the site Friday at the Summit County Community and Senior Center, Network of Care website representative Jacqueline Zimmer gave the audience a tour of the site through a projector.

“This is like a giant filing cabinet,” she said of the medical record system, which includes categories for family history, health conditions, medical directives, etc.

Access is totally customizable, and Zimmer said the site's security is on par with VeriSign to protect peoples' private information.

“Nobody knows you have a personal health record unless you tell them,” she said.

The site can be translated into a variety of languages including Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Zimmer said the library — which includes a medication guide, symptom checker and more — has “no commercial activities,” and the website is advertising-free.

The site is sponsored by Summit County government, The Summit Foundation and Summit School District in an effort to “achieve healthy outcomes,” according to Friday's slide show presentation.

Information on child care, insurance and links to government programs are among the wealth of information on the website.

Lee Zimmerman, executive director of The Summit Foundation and co-chair of Summit CARES (Community Accessing Resources Effectively), said the site offers opportunity for people to connect with many fine community resources.

Summit County Community and Senior Center manager Kathryn Grohusky showed some statistics predicting a “silver tsunami” of residents over age 65 in Summit County through the coming years.

About 6.5 percent of the county's 29,951 residents are over 65 — up from 3.3 percent in the 2000 census. By 2020, that number is projected to rise to 13.25 percent — at 5,142 of 38,788, according to Grohusky's presentation, which included data from the state at http://dola.colorado.gov.