Floyd County Public Health’s year, by the numbers

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County Department of Public Health/Home Health Care served 362 clients in the past fiscal year, providing nursing care, personal care and housekeeping in almost 10,000 visits.

That’s in addition to more than 2,000 vaccinations administered – many of them for COVID-19 and boosters, but almost 1,500 for other vaccinations for children and adults.

Those are some of the many figures in a report given by the county Department of Health administrator to the Floyd County Board of Supervisors at the board’s meeting this week.

Administrator Gail Arjes said the report is something she puts together for the Floyd County Board of Health, which oversees her department, “to show what we do and how much we do.” Supervisor Linda Tjaden, the supervisor liaison to the Board of Health, saw the report and suggested Arjes present it to the full supervisors board, Arjes said.

In the fiscal year that began July 1, 2021, and ended June 30, 2022, the Health Department had 196 nursing clients, 105 personal care clients and 61 housekeeping clients, Arjes said. Each of those numbers represents unique individuals, so each client is only counted once, even though many clients receive more than one service.

“We have our nursing patients, we have our personal care-only patients and we have our housekeeping patients. Our nursing patients will be counted nursing, but they are also probably receiving some sort of personal care,” she said.

“Homemaker is no touch, no personal touch, so no bathing, no grooming, no lotioning. It’s just your cleaning. It’s running errands, mopping the floor, whatever they need done in the home. I’m kind of cutting back on that a little bit. Some of the funding for that service has been cut back quite significantly. When that gets cut back, or course we have to make those changes, too,” Arjes said.

There were 4,486 home care aide visits in the fiscal year. Those visits averaged just under one hour each, and such services are paid by Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance or private pay, the report says.

There were 1,903 homemaker visits in the fiscal year, averaging a little under 80 minutes each.

Service is provided only within Floyd County, Arjes said, and in the fiscal year, home health care nurses drove 22,424 miles and aides drove 22,733 miles, for a total of 45,157 miles.

Last fiscal year the department gave about 600 doses of COVID-19 vaccine and booster, she said. The year before, when the vaccines first became available, the department administered about 4,600 doses.

“That’s a lot of vaccine for our nurses to give,” she said.

Pharmacies have taken over some of the COVID and other vaccinations, but the Health Department still does COVID-19 booster clinics, every Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Floyd County Public Health office at 1003 Gilbert St. in Charles City.

“We had a really good turnout last Wednesday. We had quite a few people through the door, getting that booster,” Arjes said.

“We’re the only place in the county that does pediatric vaccines,” she added.

Another thing the Public Health Department does is audits of immunization records for preschools and schools, checking that students have the state-required vaccinations at the preschool level, kindergarten, seventh grade and 12th grade.

The department has nine nurses, including Arjes, four clerical staff and six home care aides, the report says.

Funding sources include Medicare and Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, private insurance companies, Charles City Community Fund, donations and county funding. In the last fiscal year it received several grants, including from the Iowa Department of Public Health and through COVID-19 Coronavirus Relief Fund, COVID-19 Crisis Response Funding and COVID-19 Crisis Response Funding-Immunization.