�鶹Ů��

Southwest Minnesota EMS will receive $9.9 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation as part of an initiative to improve and speed up care after crashes in rural communities. The money provides 54 EMS agencies in the 18-county service region with Avel eCare’s EMS services. Ambulance rigs will be outfitted with telemedicine rigs connecting crews to board-certified physicians, experienced paramedics, and nurses for virtual peer-to-peer support in the field or during transport. (Yang, 9/13)

Gov. Ron DeSantis is pledging more money in the coming fiscal year to help grow Florida’s nursing workforce. The governor says the state has already invested nearly $400 million in two programs created by lawmakers in 2022 to help graduate more nurses from Florida schools. (Lisciandrello, 9/12)

Yorba Linda is a small, sunny city southeast of Los Angeles. It’s perhaps best known for being the birthplace of President Richard Nixon. But in the past few years, Yorba Linda has picked up another distinction: It’s home to the nation’s largest per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) water treatment plant of its kind, according to the city. “This December will be [three] years we've been running, and we’re the largest PFAS treatment plant using resin,” says J. Wayne Miller, former board president at the Yorba Linda Water District, for whom the plant is named. (Huang, 9/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: The First Year Of Georgia’s Medicaid Work Requirement Is Mired In Red Tape

On a recent summer evening, Raymia Taylor wandered into a recreation center in a historical downtown neighborhood, the only enrollee to attend a nearly two-hour event for people who have signed up for Georgia’s experimental Medicaid expansion. The state launched the program in July 2023, requiring participants to document that they’re working, studying, or doing other qualifying activities for 80 hours a month in exchange for health coverage. (Rayasam and Whitehead, 9/13)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: ‘What Happens Three Months From Now?’ Mental Health After Georgia High School Shooting

About an hour after gunfire erupted at Apalachee High School, ambulances started arriving at nearby Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow with two students and two adults suffering from panic attacks and extreme anxiety, not bullet wounds. A fifth patient with similar symptoms later arrived at another local facility, according to a health system spokesperson. (Whitehead, Rayasam and Miller, 9/13)

Wyoming has had in-state call centers for the 988 suicide hotline for the past two years. Those centers can now receive text messages. Since June, anyone with a 307 area code who texts 988 will get a response from someone within the state. Beforehand texts were going to national call centers. (Kudelska, 9/12)

Luke Sypherd stood in the ambulance bay at Cody Regional Health last summer trying to explain why emergency medical services are so important — and why it’s been so hard to communicate that idea to the public. Sypherd works with Cody Regional’s EMS wing, and is also president of the Wyoming EMS Association. He wants people to understand that “disease and death cost a lot,” but well-funded, and therefore well-functioning, EMS can help reduce those costs in the long run. There are a plethora of studies demonstrating how EMS timeliness can save lives and limit long-term disability. That includes instances of severe trauma, stroke and heart attacks.  (Beck, 9/9)

Most businesses in Wyoming would go under if they were operating more than a million dollars in the red — but Star Valley EMS, which bore that deficit last year, is no ordinary business. It saves lives.  The agency also took on some unusual expenses the last few years as it merged with two struggling volunteer EMS outfits nearby, speeding up area response times. “We saved Alpine and Thane, and now we’re covering this whole valley,” said director Bud Clark. Wyoming EMS agencies are increasingly consolidating as a way to try and stay financially viable in rural Wyoming. (Beck, 9/3)

Bondurant sits about halfway between Pinedale and Jackson along scenic Highway 191 in western Wyoming. The area is buffeted by the Gros Ventre Wilderness, Hoback River, and both the Wind River and Wyoming ranges. From the road along the valley floor, you can see abrupt pine-tree-freckled hills and the snowy peaks of nearby mountains to the northwest. The tranquil location is a draw to folks like Sam Sumrall and his wife, who retired there after moving from Mississippi. But it comes with risks. “We lived in the country [in Mississippi], but we were literally five minutes from the hospital, five minutes from Walmart,” he said. “When we moved out here, we did so with the awareness of the fact that we weren’t going to have that luxury.” (Beck, 8/26)