Greene County’s Perinatal Navigator, Nikki Page, RN provided an update to the GCGH board of trustees during their October board meeting on Tuesday, October 20, 2020. Page was asked by the GCGH Foundation to provide an update on two of the Foundation’s programs; the Perinatal Navigator program and the Lexi Poindexter Memorial Project. She reported that the Perinatal Navigator program has served over 200 Greene County families since beginning in June 2019. The program, she explained, serves families of Greene County to help them have healthy pregnancies and babies. This is a free program through the Indiana Rural Health Association funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The program is open to families during pre-pregnancy, pregnancy and until the child is 18 months old.
Page also read two patient statements thanking the Perinatal Navigator program. One of the statements, sent in by Bradley Seymour of Bloomfield, Indiana thanked GCGH, Nikki Page and the Perinatal Navigator Program. Seymour specifically credited the Lexi Poindexter Memorial Project, a donor funded GCGH Foundation program, with saving his wife’s life. Seymour wrote that his wife had an easy pregnancy with very little complications. That all changed, he stated, after they had been home for a few days. His wife, Jordan, began experiencing migraines, was retaining water and had chest pains. He advised her to take her blood pressure using the blood pressure cuff purchased with funds donated by Lexi Poindexter’s family to the GCGH Foundation. Jordan Seymour quickly realized that she had dangerously high blood pressure. She contacted Page and went to the GCGH Emergency Department. She was transferred to another facility. After an intense few days in the facility and a longer recovery, she is home with her family.
Seymour wrote, “This program and position, I feel, is critical to have in our community to help others who need it. We would not have been able to know about my wife’s very high blood pressure without Nikki and the program.”
The board also reviewed and approved several annual updates to existing policies including the Medication Safety Plan, Utilization Review Plan, Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Plan and the Risk Management Plan. The board also approved the 2021 budget.
During CEO, Brenda Reetz’s, administrative report, the board recognized her American Hospital Association’s 2020 Grassroots Champion award for exceptional leadership and GCGH’s 2020 Regional Innovation Quality of Place Innovation award. This award, shared between GCGH and White River Valley School Corporation, recognized the school-based telehealth program started by GCGH’s My Clinics and WRV.
The board meeting concluded with no pubic comments.
