OTHER NEWS:
Grants
Your independent community hospital is always looking for grant opportunities that help defray the cost of keeping current with new technologies and providing services that are needed in the area.
Some of the recent grants awarded to Bigfork Valley include a $100,000 Rural Hospital Capital Improvement Grant for purchasing new surgery equipment to do orthopedic and other surgical procedures; a state grant for $18,545 to help in the cost of constructing a decontamination room in our new hospital addition; a $35,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Rural Hospital Planning and Transition Grant Program for TeleHomeCare remote communications equipment and a $10,000 grant from the MDH Office of Rural Health and Primary Care for training in the proper use of personal medical information.
Scheduling lab work for clinic checkups
If you are planning a visit to Northland Medical Clinic for a routine checkup, please do not schedule lab work before your appointment. The clinic wants its patients to know that insurance reimbursement often will not cover “routine” lab work, but only work which is ordered through a physician as a medical necessity. Your physician may also decide to add additional labwork during your checkup. So to prevent an unexpected bill, wait for your appointment!
New pharmacy director
Keith Pearson is the new Director of Pharmacy at Bigfork Valley. Look for new patient-centered initiatives that bring the pharmacist, doctor and patient together to focus on ongoing effectiveness of medication, and the development of a telepharmacy option to help patients at remote clinics in the area.
Pearson is a past president of the Minnesota Pharmacist Association and owned and operated the Pamida Pharmacy in Hibbing for 27 years before coming to Bigfork Valley in January.
New Health Educator at Clinic
Tricia Marconett has joined Northland Medical Clinic as Health Educator.
Patients are referred to Marconnet for counseling on how to change lifstyles and nutrition in response to new diagnoses.
Marconett received her BAS in Community Health Education from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and previously worked as Fitness Director for a YMCA in the Cities. She is a Red Cross state instructor for CPR and also teaches Fitness Yoga.
Interested in a health career?
Bigfork Valley wants to encourage you! Each year Bigfork Valley joins with its Auxiliary to offer scholarships to those interested in pursuing a health career in our area. Applications will be available in July.
You can support the scholarship program, too, by attending the annual Arts and Crafts Fair in Bigfork the first Friday in August.
Do you live in Koochiching County?
We have a job for you! One where you will have a chance to participate in keeping your community rural hospital strong...and where you can keep up to date on all the exciting happenings this year! There is one vacancy on the Bigfork Valley Board of Directors in the at-large position for Koochiching County. If you are interested, call the hospital at (218) 743-3177.
Practicing for emergencies
There are new patients in the Bigfork Valley emergency room...and they come back month after month.
To keep skills honed for emergency trauma patients, hospital doctors and staff run monthly drills handling different kinds of emergency cases like auto accidents, etc.
Now they have new patients to practice on.
Recently with the help of donations from the Lions Club and the hospital auxiliary, the nursing department purchased three lifelike mannequins; a 150 lb. male, a child and an infant.
Unlike a normal doll, these mannequins can accept many kinds of medical procedures such as IV therapy, intubation, shallow venipuncture, CPR, electric shock and a number of other highly specialized training simulations. This helps the medical and nursing staff to practice those procedures as well as how to handle the emergency itself.
Are these patients real? No. But the situations are, and someday those practice drills may save someone’s life.
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