Month: August 2020

Henry County Health Center Emergency Medical Services (EMS) was one of 27 agencies nationwide to receive a $198,913 grant through the SIREN Act. The funding will be used for the Henry County Health Center EMS Training & Recruitment Program to capture the strengths of grant participants, encourage professional growth and address current challenges. The work will benefit both EMS providers, community volunteers and patients, and strengthen the rural region’s health care environment.

The SIREN Act focuses on serving rural communities and covers a variety of programs including training and education, licensing and certifications, and purchasing emergency medical equipment. The Siren Act also supports the recruitment and retention of personnel to serve communities more efficiently, and emphasizes innovative methods to advance and educate emergency healthcare providers through technology-enhanced methods.

“This grant is helpful in modernizing our entire county EMS system and crucial to the recruitment and retention of both existing and new EMS providers in our system,” commented Jacob Dodds, HCHC EMS Director. “I am very proud that our proposed plan was outstanding enough that we were selected as one of the only 27 agencies nationwide to be awarded this grant.”

The grant funds will enable EMS to do the following:

• Purchase an advanced life support simulator system which, when combined with specialized adult and pediatric manikins, uses reality-based scenarios to enhance providers’ proficiency.
• Enhance the continuing education and administrative assistance provided to volunteer first responders by giving them access to the online training and credential management system used by HCHC EMS.
• Provide scholarship assistance for approximately 20 individuals seeking to obtain initial EMS certification at the Emergency Medical Responder, Emergency Medical Technician, or Paramedic level training programs at Indian Hills and Southeastern Community Colleges.
• Purchase personal protective equipment for EMS staff to offer better protection at accident scenes where there is broken glass, metal, chemicals etc. This gear will be a lighter, but similar to the same gear worn by firefighters.

Expected outcomes for the HCHC EMS Training and Recruitment Program by the end of 12 months included: improved organizational and community collaboration for EMS recruitment and retention; improved access to and coordination of EMS training programs; and a strengthened network of responders and partners better capable of addressing psycho-social and medical needs of local communities.

Program Focuses on Education and Governance Best Practices

 Henry County Health Center Trustees were recently awarded certification from the Iowa Hospital Association’s (IHA) Board Certification Program.

This IHA Hospital Board Certification program provides a framework for hospital trustees and governing boards to demonstrate their individual and collective commitment to their governance roles and responsibilities. Certification is made up of two components: education and governance best practices.

Hospitals and health systems are recognized as One, Two, or Three Star Boards depending on the percentage of board members certified. HCHC is a Three Star Board which is the best rating as Three Star has the highest percentage of board members certified. All of HCHC’s board members completed the Hospital Board Certification Program.

Through this certification program, individual trustees and entire hospital boards show their community and its stakeholders including employers and businesses, lawmakers and hospital employees their commitment to serving in the best interests of the community.

“This IHA program provides a structure to support and promote hospitals in fostering highly-effective governance,” explained Robb Gardner, CEO of HCHC. “The trustees’ voluntary participation in this certification program is evidence of their commitment and dedication to HCHC’s mission to provide high quality, effective and efficient services.”

Saturday, August 15^th is the 1^st day to buy your deer tags.  It’s the same as last year, any sex deer tag is $28.50 and ONE antlerless tag is $28.50.   The 2^nd antlerless deer tags are not available until September 15^th, unless the quota is gone.  There are 925 antlerless tags available again this year for Henry County.  The Henry County Recorder’s office will be open Monday – Friday next week 8:00 am – 4:30 pm.

The Mount Pleasant High School Panther Marching Band is inviting the public to come out to watch the band practice this morning (Friday) at the high school. The entire band will be there from 11:00 to 11:45 working on their fall show, The Prince of Egypt, based on the story of Moses. Park in the south lot and either watch from your car or stand or sit in your lawn chair along the sideline. Please observe social distancing among yourselves and also the students and staff.

The band has been practicing the past 2 weeks. Their show was written by Jim DePriest as a socially distanced show, which keeps every student 7.5 feet apart. Unlike past years, the band has been practicing in smaller groups for the most part.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Aug.13, 2020) – Responding to an unprecedented storm in an unprecedented year, Alliant Energy and ITC Midwest are working, as quickly and safely as possible, to restore electric services throughout Iowa.

The utilities have confronted the devastating damage with a similarly unprecedented restoration effort. The companies achieved a key milestone Tuesday night when the lights came back on in downtown Cedar Rapids. ITC Midwest was able to return to service a critical line that feeds Alliant Energy’s Downtown Industrial substation, allowing Alliant Energy to restore electric services to the city’s hospitals, police and fire stations, municipal government offices, businesses and residences in the city’s core. The close coordination between ITC Midwest and Alliant Energy is key to continued progress in restoring electric service throughout the city, county and affected region.

ITC Midwest has estimated that nearly 350 miles of lines in Linn County alone were impacted by Monday’s derecho. Across its entire service area, the company estimated more than 1,200 miles of lines were impacted in some way, from mild damage to miles of transmission structures broken and lying on the ground. To respond, ITC Midwest has mobilized more than 500 field utility workers to repair and rebuild the transmission system. The company is working closely with Alliant Energy and other distribution utilities to prioritize the needed transmission lines and substations to be re-energized. Substations step down high voltage electricity from the transmission system to a lower voltage so power can be supplied to homes and businesses through local distribution lines.

At the same time, Alliant Energy, joined by employees from across Iowa and Wisconsin and crews from throughout the country, is repairing and replacing its power lines and poles, substations and other equipment. As both companies work in tandem on repairs, services will continue to be steadily restored for Iowa customers.

As of 9 a.m. CDT today, power has been restored for more than 100,000 Alliant Energy customers, following the widespread outages caused by the major storms on Monday afternoon. For a complete update, click to view Alliant Energy’s recent statement.

“The entire restoration team, including our crews from Iowa and Wisconsin, crews from other utilities and ITC Midwest, is making progress to restore services to all customers,” stated Terry Kouba, SVP at Alliant Energy and President of the Iowa Utility Company. “The crews are working as quickly and as safely as possible in order to fully restore all services.”

“This was by far the most extensive storm damage we have seen since ITC Midwest began operating the transmission system at the end of 2007,” said Dusky Terry, president of ITC Midwest. “The storm was the equivalent of a 40-mile wide tornado that rolled over 100 miles of the state. To address the damage, we have deployed significant resources and equipment to return the transmission system to service. We’ll continue partnering with Alliant Energy and other local utilities to bring power back to Iowans.”

Alliant Energy and ITC Midwest appreciate your patience as crews continue to work to restore services to all customers. Please visit Alliant Energy’s outage map, Facebook page and Twitter feed for updates. Please visit ITC’s Facebook page for updates.

People’s Choice Award 

Help select the 2020 Governor’s Charity Steer Show People’s Choice Award by participating in the online voting process via Facebook. Vote for the sponsor, celebrity, and youth exhibitor of your choice by liking that team’s picture on the original post on the Iowa Governor’s Charity Steer Show Facebook page. Each picture like equals one point and each share on the respective picture will count as two points for that team.

• One like = one point
• One share = two points
• The first round of voting will conclude Friday evening
• The top two teams with the most votes on Friday evening by 5 p.m. will proceed on to a second round of voting.
• The second round of voting will start Friday evening at 7 p.m. and will conclude when the show starts at 3:05 p.m. on Saturday
• The winner will be announced during the show on Saturday
• The People’s Choice winner will not be eligible for the Champion steer or Showmanship selections.

In 1983, the Iowa Beef Industry Council and the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association joined forces with Governor Terry Branstad and organized the Governor’s Charity Steer Show (GCSS). At the Governor’s request, the designated charity for the first-time event was the Ronald McDonald Houses of Iowa. Houses are now located in Des Moines, Iowa City and Sioux City. These facilities house the family members of seriously ill children being treated in area hospitals.