Posts by editor

Dear Community Partners, The resistance of some to get a COVID-19 vaccine may at times be less about resistance and more about barriers. I recently learned of a situation in which a person “resisting” the vaccine was actually willing to get it but resisted because of language barriers she faced. The person believed she didn’t…

Dear Community Partners, Here are today’s updates: COVID-19 Scorecard (Scorecard: English | Spanish) COVID-19 Vaccines COVID-19 Scorecard Here’s a look at today’s COVID-19 scorecard: We have 55 inpatients who are COVID-19 positive. The percentage of hospital patients who are unvaccinated is 85%. Vaccinated is defined as fully vaccinated individuals for greater than 14 days since the last immunization.…

Dear Community Partners, August often is a month we see transitions and new beginnings. A new school year starts. Fall sports leagues begin their practices. The hot, humid summer temperatures begin the transition into fall with cooler nights. Gardeners see their summer gardens winding up, but can plant cool season vegetables to take them into…

Dear Community Partners, Today we have 31 inpatients who are suffering from COVID-19 infections. Of those, 17 are in intensive care or intermediate care, and the others are being cared for in regular medical patient rooms. The past couple of days more of our COVID-19 patients have needed a higher level of care. Intensive care…

Dear Community Partners, All the indicators of community spread of COVID-19 are on the rise: inpatient admissions, patients in the Enhanced Primary Care, drive up COVID-19 testing, and calls this week to the “Call Before You Go” hotline. The Enhanced Primary Care program provides supportive outpatient services to help keep people out of the hospital.…

Dear Community Partners, All the indicators of community spread of COVID-19 are on the rise: inpatient admissions, patients in the Enhanced Primary Care, drive up COVID-19 testing, and calls this week to the “Call Before You Go” hotline. The Enhanced Primary Care program provides supportive outpatient services to help keep people out of the hospital.…

Dear Community Partners, Like other hospitals across the region, we have a growing concern about how the nursing shortage impacts our ability to care for our communities in the middle of a pandemic. As a regional hospital that provides a layer of support to smaller critical access hospitals, we take care of patients transferred to…

Dear Community Partners, Beginning with today’s COVID-19 Scorecard, we will provide the vaccination status of hospitalized patients. We will also be providing the number of COVID-19 patient discharges and deaths from the previous day and cumulative numbers of hospitalized and discharged patients and deaths. We are adding context to the COVID-19 positive testing rate related…