Gov. Kim Reynolds left for talks on Tuesday Discuss challenges facing three Sioux County hospital administrators and rural healthcare providers in Iowa.
Sioux Center Health CEO Cory Nelson said at the meeting, which was closed to the press, his biggest request to Reynolds was to develop new policies and It said it was to improve access to care and maintain partnerships to address workforce issues.
“Governments can make policies and we must implement them,” Nelson said. “So as we move forward, making sure we continue to maintain these connections and dialogues is a point of our discussion.”
Nelson said being able to have an open discussion was “really great and I want to keep doing that.”
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“We will continue to review access to quality healthcare throughout Iowa,” Reynolds said. “We made some important achievements in the last Congress.”
Mr. Reynolds points to tort reform, This will help Iowa attract and retain doctors, she said.
“We continue to look at access, quality care and workforce as big issues,” Reynolds said.
Even with government assistance, Reynolds He said it will take time to bounce back from the workforce and financial challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nelson said the pandemic requires a search for solutions, and his organization was nearly $5 million over budget In 2022.
“Many of our organizational costs have clearly increased during the pandemic,” Nelson said. “And we are committed to working together to find solutions that help ensure we maintain the high quality care that we and all our customers have come to expect.”
Forgivable loans and center of excellence Those are two issues Reynolds raised when discussing the growth of rural health care in Iowa, adding that two new centers of excellence will be announced soon.
“So, despite some challenges, we’ve just been named the #2 state in the nation when it comes to health care,” Reynolds said, citing a recent survey. Wallet hub ranking. “I think a lot of what we are doing is moving the state in the right direction. We never stop, we keep looking for ways to improve the programs we have put in. Continuous improvement is something I am proud of.”
Mr. Nelson said Mr. Reynolds and Republican U.S. Congressman Randy Feenstra, from Hull, are “our great champions in health care.”
Reynolds said policymaking comes from days like this.
“That’s the benefit of going out and sitting down and talking to hospital CEOs and nursing homes and the industry in general,” she said, adding that the goal is to “know what’s really working. Not only that, but I knew very well what was going wrong.”
Sioux Center Health has expanded since its construction in 2014 and now serves a community of more than 8,000 people, providing end-to-end care.
During Nelson’s tour of the facility, Reynolds said he was impressed by the productivity of the facility and the number of young people working there.
After the tour, Reynolds gave two reporters a four-minute media response, answering a total of three questions before heading to Le Mars for ice cream and attending an evening event in Sioux City.
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