Success Stories by State: Iowa

• Gundersen Lutheran Health System: Performance Improvement Through Partnership
  August 2009
  Gundersen Lutheran Health System is a physician-led, not-for-profit integrated delivery system serving more than 550,000 people in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.
• Butler County Parish Nurse Project
  May 2009
  The Butler County Parish Nurse Project was developed to create a delivery system that focuses on the prevention and early detection of several illnesses, including heart disease and cancer.
• Maquoketa Community School District (MCSD) Rural Health Outreach Program
  May 2009
  The MCSD Rural Health Outreach Program provided a wide range of health promotion and disease prevention activities including nursing offices in every school, annual health screenings for all students, dental care, mental health services, community education, annual scoliosis screenings for sixth through eighth grade students, and annual vision, height, weight, and blood pressure screenings.
• Timely Life Care Project
  May 2009
  The project funded 4,320 patient visits, and there was increased understanding among many in the area’s health care system of the value of palliative care in reducing acute care recidivism, the length of hospital stays, and emergency room and doctor’s office visits.
• Mobile Unit Brings Cancer Screenings to Native American Women
  November 2008
  Describes how the Mobile Women's Health Unit works to meet the needs of Native American women living in rural areas.
• Sowing the Seeds of Hope
  July 2008
  Sowing the Seeds of Hope is responding to the mental health needs of farm families. This is a collaborative effort of project leaders in seven predominantly rural states: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
• Internet Access in Iowa Rural Hospitals
  June 2008
  Funding from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will enable participating hospitals to install a fiber optic connection to increase their capacity to send medical records, increase the speed with which the records are transmitted, and decrease the amount of time for a patient to receive treatment.
• EMS Co-op Helps Rural Providers
  September 2007
  Using the power of group purchasing within a cooperative structure, the North Central EMS Cooperative (NCEMSC) is an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) cooperative developed to serve Minnesota and surrounding states.
• Building Healthy Families Project
  January 2007
  The Building Healthy Families project is designed to meet the unique cultural, social, and linguistic needs of pregnant Hispanic women living in Marshall County.
• Wayne County Multi-Generational Behavioral Health Project
  January 2007
  The Project aims to increase access to behavioral health care for children, youth, and isolated elderly members by providing outreach and education resources, and promoting greater community involvement in an integrated network of services.
• Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Consortium
  January 2007
  Through a community effort, this project aims to launch an attack against domestic abuse and sexual assault through education, screening practices and public awareness.
• Integrated Service Pathways Network Project
  January 2007
  This project aims to divert people with co-occurring disorders from the traditional criminal justice system/jail into programs which can effectively treat the problem and break the cycle of arrest, jail, release, and re-arrest.
• Healthy Kids Clinic
  July 2005
  Three local school districts, two local health departments, one nonprofit health agency, and all local area physicians and dental providers formed a consortium to provide health and dental services to students in the schools regardless of income or insurance status.
• Maximizing Independence of Rural Elderly Through Use of Assistive Technology and Access to Health Care Services
  July 2005
  Five organizations joined together to address the health care needs of the aging rural Iowa population by providing assistive technologies and home modifications, increasing access to primary health care and rehabilitative therapies, and educating rural elderly and health care workers to help identify potential hazards in homes.
• Tri-County Health Connections Network
  July 2005
  This project was a community-based initiative to enhance prevention and early intervention services for pregnant and postpartum women, their infants, and families living in rural central Iowa.