(Spirit Lake)—Dickinson County Public Health is getting some statewide recognition. Cyndy Powers tells KUOO news they’ve been named the recipient of the 2013 Immunization Champion Award from the Iowa Department of Public Health. She says the accomplishment represents a true team effort…(click here for comment.) “Bethany Aberg who has just been with us for one year as a of today has just been an outstanding team member and has helped us to put together a lean project to take a look at our clinics and how we can become more efficient in getting people in on time for their vaccinations. Also helping us with that team was Lois Schaffer, who’s one of our casual nurses, and Jenny Lee who is our Secretary. And I have been part of that team as well. So it’s been an exciting time for us.”
Powers says the award is the result of a couple of major accomplishments Dickinson County Public Health has been able to make in recent months…(click here for comment.) “Just to give you an example one of the things that we did is we asked the state to change their hard cards to meet the growing demand for people that now have cell phones. Emails change very frequently, to add that on to their hard cards. We put a lot of this into the computer on our registry but we also keep a hard card as well. The state recognized that that needed to be done and that was accomplished. Another thing that we did is we worked really hard with our O.B. Department to make some changes there, trying to get the hepatitis B done a little sooner after the babies are born because that’s very important. But also other things we could do to help get those people into the system and get them started with their immunizations on time.”
Powers attributes a couple of factors in particular that led up to Dickinson County Public Health receiving the honor…(click here for comment.) “I just think that the quality improvement piece was the part that probably helped us the most, and doing the lean project. I know that’s not a new concept especially in factories, etc., but for a lot of people especially in the medical field it still is a relatively new concept. And so we’re just trying to improve our delivery of systems to Dickinson county residents and those summer residents that come in here as well and to make it a much more efficient system.”
The award was presented to Dickinson County Public Health last month as part of the 2013 Immunization Conference. The event is put on annually by the Iowa Department of Public Health.
