News

Orange City, Iowa — Last week we told you that the Sioux County public health department, known as Community Health Partners, or “CHP” has been awarded a grant to implement the State Innovation Model or “SIM” initiative in Sioux County. CHP is one of only 6 grant recipients state-wide.

We had a chance to talk with Angela Kroeze Visser about the grant. She says that through the SIM program CHP will collaborate over the next 3 years with the 4 hospitals in the county, as well as community partners and community members, to integrate public health and primary medical care to “transform the health care delivery system, with the goal of a healthier population and decreased health care costs.” She says the focus will be on prevention.

She tells us what that coalition will be doing.

She says they hope to have a community care coordinator at each of the hospitals in the county and at the Community Health Partners office. She says there is already a community care coordinator at Promise Community Health Center in Sioux Center. She says the idea there is for a doctor or other provider to refer patients in need of help in the grant’s focus areas of obesity, tobacco use and chronic diseases like diabetes to the community care coordinator, who can help the patient find available resources.

Kroeze Visser says the SIM grant will allow CHP and its partners to continue our efforts to make Sioux County a healthy place for all to live, work, play and learn.

She says the $179,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Public Health will include staffing all of the positions around the county.

State officials expect future funding from these grants will reach all counties in the state.

Osceola County, Iowa — If you enjoy following our ever-changing weather conditions, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow network, or CoCoRaHS is looking for you.

Iowa State Climatologist Harry Hillaker says volunteers are needed as part of a national network of weather observers.

The data that’s collected by the volunteer observers is available for free online and helps the National Weather Service with flood forecasting, drought assessments, and more.

The CoCoRaHS network was established in Colorado in 1998 and has spread to all 50 states. Iowa joined the volunteer network in 2007. Hillaker says weather observers are needed statewide, but the most critical needs are in Osceola County, among others.

Northwest Iowa — A fraudulent scam has been reported in this area, this time on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.  This scam is a fraudulent Hy-Vee grocery giveaway post circulating on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Hy-Vee company officials say the giveaway is not affiliated with or supported by Hy-Vee, and they urge their customers to not engage with the scam website or provide their personal information.

According to Hy-Vee, in recent weeks, these posts have surfaced using the likeness of other major retailers, as well.  Hy-Vee says they suggest that you beware of any offers that sound too good to be true, have unaffiliated URLs and contain grammatical errors or misspellings.

Hy-Vee says they are diligently working to get the website taken down. In the meantime, they recommend that you not share the post and simply delete it. The fraudulent post states people will receive $150 worth of groceries for their birthday.

Hy-Vee says they want their customers to know this giveaway is in no way affiliated with Hy-Vee.  The company also wants to educate customers on the dangers posed by sharing and clicking on the post, according to Hy-Vee Vice President of Communications Tara Deering-Hansen.

People who have accidentally clicked on the scam link and provided their personal information will want to scan their computer for viruses and malware and change any password information.