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Happy American Heart Month! With heart disease still ranking as the number one killer of American men and women, it is an important time to know the signs of a heart attack as well as ways to prevent heart disease. Here are a few lifestyle changes that can help reduce your risk for heart disease.  1.  Don't smoke or use tobacco 2.  Get moving: Aim for at least 30 to 60 minutes of activity daily 3.  Eat a heart-healthy diet Two examples of heart-healthy food plans include the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) eating plan and the Mediterranean diet. 4.  Maintain a healthy weight Waist circumference can be a useful tool to measure how much belly fat you have. The risk of heart disease is higher if the waist measurement is greater than:    40 inches for men and 35 inches for women. 5.  Get quality sleep (at 7 hours a night) 6.  Manage stress 7.  Get regular health screening tests Important numbers to know-- Your blood pressure, Your cholesterol count, and your A1C .  If it's been a while since you've met with your doctor and done some testing, this month is a perfect reminder to get in for that checkup! We are thrilled to introduce Dr. Diane Hunt, a skilled General Surgeon, as the newest member of our team! Originally from Wilsey, Dr. Hunt graduated from Council Grove High School in 1985 before attending the University of Kansas. There, she majored in chemistry and even caught the attention of the Women’s Jayhawks basketball team, joining them for a memorable stint. After completing medical school at KU Med in Kansas City, Dr. Hunt spent two years in clinical training in Wichita before completing a five-year surgical residency. She has been in private practice with Kansas Surgical Consultants since 1999. Dr. Hunt will be seeing patients at MCH on the 2nd and 4th Friday of each month, bringing extensive knowledge and experience to our surgery team. We are excited to have her with us! We are on our regular schedule for chair yoga at the senior centers. The Council Grove senior center  meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at 11:00 am, and the White City senior center meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month at 10:30 am.  Everyone is welcome to join us for some great movement! In honor of Heart Health month, we will be talking about how to live A Heart Healthy Lifestyle. Learning more about the risk factors and how we can lower our risk for heart disease. Plus, we will enjoy a delicious lunch and great conversation. Lunch is $6 and you do need to reserve your spot for Wednesday, February 19th at 12:00 pm . You can call 620-767-6811 ext. 148 or email szeigler@mrcohosp.com  to reserve a spot and with any questions or a topic that you would like added to the schedule. If home maintenance has been difficult this winter, maybe it's time to check out the amenities that come with living in an Assisted Living apartment. We currently have three apartments available. You can call Laverne at 620-767-5600 to set up a time to take a tour and see if this home-style living is the right place for you or your loved one.

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending February 1st As we head into Super Bowl weekend, I am sure there are some areawide faithful who will begin tailgating in the next twenty-four hours or so and bulldogging it right through to kickoff. I am not that faithful, but I will be thinking of threepeat multiple times until its either achieved (or sadly not). GO CHIEFS! MCH is still seeing some slower utilization of services that can be attributable to our recent cold and/or undesirable weather: Pulmonary Rehab for one. Other services are less desirable because of new year deductible statuses, which make you really need a service to be inclined to pay off the yearly startup patient obligation: Sleep Center and Pain Clinic areas for two. Otherwise, we are gaining back the green numbers that avoided us during the storm of a lifetime. A big THANKS is appropriate for our generous Community which responded with a great turnout to our year’s first Blood Drive on 2-3-2025! And thanks to the volunteers who make this every-other-month event, a success! Though our hospital does not require near all the blood that we collect in these drives, there is a large state-wide demand for these irreplaceable products, and the Blood Center is very grateful for Morris County’s contributions to the blood bank. Our Board has reviewed our first draft of a 2025 Budget, to which some tweaks are being made prior to releasing to managers for reviewing and helping to execute. Following our solid 2024, the plan is to prolong the momentum we gained. Thanks for each of you who daily deliver attentive patient care, and to all of you: do something worth remembering in the next two weeks – AND, again, GO CHIEFS!!!!!!!! Kevin Leeper, CEO

We are pleased to provide our patients with the opportunity to participate in Health Information Exchange (HIE). An HIE provides their participating providers access to health information regardless of where the patient receives care. These participating providers may connect to other participating providers electronic health records to view health information for patients enrolled in the network as they deem necessary. This helps a patient’s providers—primary care practitioners, specialists, hospitals, and clinics—to have ready access to patient health information. For example, if you go to an emergency room or clinic that participates in an HIE network, the healthcare providers would be able to access your health information to help make treatment decisions for you. The following information is made available to participating providers in an HIE: (1) records of allergies and drug reactions; (2) medication and immunization history; (3) transcribed diagnostic and treatment records; (4) procedure records; (5) problem lists and diagnoses; and (6) notes from the patient’s practitioners. Currently your health information is being sent to the KONZA Network HIE and effective February 1, 2025, your health information will be sent to the Commonwell Network. If you have questions, please contact the Business Office, HIM, or MCH Clinic to discuss

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending January 18th Digging out from the big blast of nearly three weeks ago has certainly been a slow process with the continued low temps. The weatherman keeps promising a return to a normal winter by Sunday and everyone hopes he is right. People need their routine medical treatments and therapies, which have been logistically compromised for the start of this year. My guess is that business levels for everyone except the utility companies and road clearers is well below average over the past three weeks. Our one real blessing is that we are not located in the outer Los Angeles area. We all prefer our cold to their fiery heat, and our thoughts are indeed with those affected.   Staying inside during this pay period has given everyone ample time to reflect on our new Presidents’ inauguration as well as the start of our new State Congressional year here in Kansas. I am not sure everyone is optimistic about the new personnel in our nationwide offices, but I think everyone owes each of them a chance and some time to improve our current state!   With approval of our Board, MCH has embraced the opportunity of picking up some new and older equipment via the liquidation effort Emprise Bank is conducting with the former assets of Herington Hospital, Inc. Though a reminder of the very sad day for the Herington Community, it is nice that we, as a neighboring hospital, can put to good use several items purchased, primarily for the opening of an outpatient center in Hillsboro, KS. We are purchasing a couple new OR lights and an x-ray room, a large sterilizer, and several other smaller pieces of clinical equipment, at steeply discounted prices.   We have February start dates for our two new part time physicians: Dr. Tyler Stephenson, FP and Dr. Diane Hunt, Gen Surgery. As their schedules crystalize we will post their availabilities on our website. I want to thank and appreciate the great support given to a frozen pipe break at our Assisted Living Center, just yesterday. With an alert onsite staff and a few hospital people that hurried over around lunchtime, I think major damage was avoided. My hat is off to Laverne Young and her dedicated crew for responding so effectively!   I remind everyone to keep some work time attentive to knowing were our policies are located – an unannounced survey team is heading this way in the near future and will be asking random employees questions about our policies. Each of us practicing what our policies prescribe is the next thing they will want to validate. Also – remember what our #1 purpose for being here is – to assist our customers in the absolute way we would want to be treated. Thanks and have a great end to January – AND GO CHIEFS!!!!!!!! Kevin Leeper, CEO

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU!!!  We partnered with the Council Grove Area Foundation in November to help your donation dollars go further with a match--and the Match Month was a great success! With the added match dollars, our community donated $30,796.94 in November towards the purchase of equipment to expand our surgical services! Although we have a bit further to go, we have continued to receive donations and are excited to meet our goal. Thank you so much to those of you who contributed to this project and our community at large for all the support you continue to give to our local hospital! New this year, Kansas hospitals are required to ask questions about non-medical factors that can affect health outcomes. Upon admission MCH will be asking questions about Housing, Utilities, Food, Transportation, and Interpersonal Safety. The data collected will help determine what needs may exist in a community to improve health outcomes for all. With all of the ice and snow still on the ground, we want to remind you to be careful as you're out and about! Don't forget the penguin waddle. Bend your knees, point your feet out, and waddle like a penguin to keep from falling on the ice. Let's start the new year with a little chair yoga! The Council Grove Senior Center meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month from 11-11:30 am and the White City Senior Center meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month from 10:30-11:00 am.   THIS MONTH HAS A SCHEDULE CHANGE  --> The Council Grove Senior Center will meet on the 3rd and 5th Thursdays!  Everyone is welcome to join us for some great movement. Mark your February Calendars: Blood Drive  will be be on Monday, February 3rd from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. You can book an appointment online  here and use group code TPOU. Health   Wise Lunch Bunch meets on the 3rd Wednesday of the month and we will be resuming our lunches on Wednesday, February 19th . We will be talking about "Living a Heart-Healthy Lifestyle" in honor of February being heart health month. I will send out a reminder next month, and you can call 620-767-6811 ext. 148 or email szeigler@mrcohosp.com  to reserve a spot. Morris County Assisted Living celebrated the holidays with a visit from Santa and rang in the New Year celebrating with friends and games. The residence currently has three apartments available for rent. If you know someone who would benefit from living in this warm family-style environment you can call Laverne at 620-767-5600 to schedule a tour and learn more.

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending January 4th This pay period spanned both the end of 2024 and day one of a blizzard beyond what most of us have recently witnessed. Though I already know of some casualties, I hope this finds that most of you have weathered this event as best as possible. I feel as I write this that we have put the worst of it behind us, but please continue to be careful out there!   These types of extraordinary weather events always command extraordinary responses from those affected. I want to take a moment to thank the many MCH hands (and contracted hands) that persevered through this major storm to keep our healthcare services alive and available to those in need! We cancelled most elective services during the first couple of days, but we still needed many of you to be here for the few in definite need of us. Thank you so much for putting our patients ahead of your personal issues and for your efforts during the past week. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed!   A bright spot emerged just prior and even during the storm, as Dr. Diane Hunt (Senne) visited our facility on January 2nd and we have been in discussion ever since regarding her spending 2-3 days a month extending her surgical skills to Morris County Hospital. She will begin this service in mid to late February on Fridays. As many of you know her from her growing up in Morris County and being a CG Brave, I am sure you will be anxious to reacquaint. Through her guidance, we may well be bringing new services to our Community in 2025. More to come! And don’t forget that Dr. Tyler Stephenson will also be joining our team part time by the end of February!   I look forward to putting together some new targets and goals for 2025. Though we started the year with very little activity (note the few green metrics attained this pay period), I know we will be back on track in no time. I feel some real positive energy entering the New Year. Thanks again for all you do! Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending December 21st With Christmas and New Year’s falling on Wednesdays this year, we will close out our year with three 2-day mini weeks…plus a rather busy Emergency Department. This kind of schedule offers a nice break from routine for most of our staff and is hopefully not too disruptive for those needing medical care. I want to thank all of our staff who pitched in with their coverage over these frequently difficult shifts to schedule! You all kept our 24/7 operations ticking and deserve this special acknowledgement!   I echo sentiments from my last report that indicated appreciation for the continued growth in services we have been able to deliver throughout 2024. The pay period in discussion is further indicative of such. Again, I thank everyone involved in our operations for their commitment to yield good outcomes for our customers.   May all of you enjoy the upcoming New Year’s celebration and come back a bit restored from these last several days of mild winter and good times with family and friends. Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending December 7th As we rapidly approach mid-December, I am mindful of this stressful but glorious season when giving is on everyone’s mind, but not always within his or her means. May we focus primarily on the SPIRIT of giving, whether it is in being more pleasant with one another, visiting someone sick, or actually saving for the gifts of precious children or grandchildren…what matters is that we do whatever with a grateful heart…because of the real meaning of Christmas – our Savior’s birth. I remain grateful for the work we are doing at MCH, as we closed out our eleventh month, despite a long holiday weekend, with another record month compared to prior years. I am grateful that patients continue to use us for their healthcare needs and that we respond by delivering mostly favorable outcomes. We will never meet everyone’s expectations, because healthcare is not an exact or precise science. Nevertheless, we can always strive to be better when things do not play out as preferred, as learning from experience is a necessity of all of us. With 2024 closing out in a successful manner, I ask that we all take away the things we did right this year, and that we grow from the lessons learned. As a rural hospital, potential drops in patient traffic always threaten our ability to cover our costs of being here, so we must do everything we can to satisfy each of our customers. I expect bigger things for 2025, so that we do not remain content with 2024. If MCH is not growing, we are most likely just fueling one or more of our neighboring hospitals. Thanks for joining me in working to keep all our residents coming here. Have a great couple weeks ahead of Christmas! Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending November 9th Cannot help but open with a comment on the election week just passed, and I will try to be as neutral as possible. All Americans know that our nation has been on a divisive slide of grievous polar opposition for some time now. I think it is more recognizable now than ever that our mainstream media and talk show hosts have been the biggest culprits of promoting this divide. To me, last week’s election results seemed to suggest that our nation’s voters are seeing through the constant complaining of the other side, with the media/hosts masquerading their rhetoric as the truth, and that such posturing is not what is important to most people. What is important is: 1.) protecting the principles of our nation, 2.) the safety of our citizens, and 3.) the return to hope for an economically viable lifestyle for all. The Democrats used to lobby for the financial support of those suffering from their borne circumstances and/or hard times. However, they have not messaged that principle as much in the past decade. The resulting gap was weaved into a Republican message that apparently touched many of those households, giving many a stronger sense of hope for better times ahead. With this decisive Republican victory, those elected sure better follow through with the message of improving things for all, in as fair a way as possible. No party has had an attainable chance to bring closer together our divided nation for some time…the responsibility, opportunity is now immense, and I truly hope that the newly elected leadership will focus on those related mandates above all else. There is so much to gain, and equally as much to lose if not embraced and executed. Hope we can all root for their success, as everyone would come out a winner (except maybe the talk show hosts☺)!   So apparently, our last week’s metrics indicate that people truly were focused on voting and on the election, so we will not belabor the softer numbers experienced at MCH, our overall softest month-startup of the year. However, our Clinic’s collective traffic did hold their own, which made for a busy Lab as well! A new part time APRN worked her first weekend ER shift for us, so I want to introduce Kisha Patterson in that role. She was not eased into her first act of duty, as 19 patients visited her this last weekend. So, welcome aboard Kisha!   As we are in the midst of Medicare’s open enrollment period, I just want all of you new (or even experienced) to the Medicare Insurance Benefit world, to be a bit skeptical towards the tempting commercials we are all now hounded with by the Medicare Advantage Companies. I also want you to know that these insurance companies are paid by CMS (Center for Medicare at the Federal level) to deliver health care services to Medicare age recipients, but are equally motivated to make a profit, unlike our traditionally run Medicare program. Therefore, if they spend millions in advertising and give away millions more in “wellness perks” for their committed customers, I assure you that they will not be paying as much in claims as the traditional Medicare Plan will pay on your behalf. If you need healthcare services moving forward, there will likely be a higher cost for you to pay at your point of service than what you are initially saving from possibly lower monthly premiums. Please give it considerable thought, and try to talk with some who have regrettably tried and suffered through an MC Advantage Plan before – these plans are truly NOT MEDICARE, but a Medicare replacement.   Hope everyone is enjoying fall, football, and occasional folly. Thanks for choosing MCH when needed! Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community For Pay Period Ending October 26th As we wrap up October and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it is nice to see going into the last week of the month we have already exceeded our monthly budgeted mammogram studies. Our Providers and our residents have really done a good job in embracing and encouraging the benefits of preventative care. As we roll into November, there are several other health related awareness months being recognized: Diabetes, Lung Cancer Awareness, Alzheimer’s, Epilepsy, and COPD. These are all illnesses that our Family Practice Team actively identifies and treats on a frequent basis, so we thank them now for their daily work!   I am pleased to announce the joint signing of a new Physician, though part time initially; we hope the practice to grow to a full time function inside of a couple of years. Dr. Tyler Stephenson (Family Practice) from Syracuse, KS will be relocating to this area in January and starting a two-day Clinic week here in February. He will also be covering one weekend ER shift per month for us. A search for another FP-OB continues through two different recruiting agencies.   As Flu Season is upon us, with positive cases identified in our area, I encourage all at risk folks (most of us are) to get their vaccinations. These are available at our Clinics and at the Public Health Department.  An addition, I remind those perhaps looking for an end of year tax deduction, that November Match Day starts this Friday at Territory Ballroom (and extends through the whole month), so a donation in November has the opportunity to grow in value. Our request this year is to support our Orthopedic Program by purchasing a special hip repair/replacement table, which will minimize travel for you through the surgery and recovery timeframe. To take advantage of the match, checks should be made out to the Council Grove Area Foundation, with MCHF written on the memo line.   Patient traffic remains high through the ten months ending in October, and as caregivers at MCH, we thank all of you who are entrusting your care to us! Thanks also for voting next week and do enjoy our Chief’s winning streak – hoping it will continue. Kevin Leeper, CEO

As we approach the end of the year, we reflect on the incredible support our community has shown for the Morris County Hospital Foundation. Your generosity has made a profound impact on our ability to provide high-quality healthcare to those in need. After last year’s incredible Match Month, we were able to purchase a 3D Tomosynthesis Mammography Machine bringing a significant impact on women’s health in our community through breast cancer detection. This year, we are embarking on an ambitious project to enhance our surgical capabilities by purchasing a new, state-of-the-art surgical hip replacement table and accompanying tools. These upgrades will not only allow patients to stay local for a total hip replacement surgery but they will improve the efficiency and safety of our procedures while also ensuring that our medical team can provide the best possible care for our patients. Through the month of November, we have a unique opportunity to increase the impact of your contribution with the help of Match Day/Match Month.  For every donation made on November 1st (and thru the entire month of November) the Council Grove Area Foundation will help match those funds through a generous donation from the Patterson Family Grant. This means your generosity can go even further in helping us reach our goal! Will you join us? To make a donation, you can: •Stop by the Match Day event on November 1st from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm at the Territory Ballroom. •Send a check written to Council Grove Area Foundation with MCHF in the memo (by November 30th) To: MCH Foundation, 600 N. Washington St., Council Grove, KS 66846  •Donate online by clicking here     Donors like you will make it possible for us to enhance the health of our community and ensure the viability of our local hospital. We can’t do it without you. Will you please make a tax-deductible gift today? Thank you for your support! Everyone can have an impact on #MatchDay!  Learn more at www.mrcohosp.com