(Iowa News Service) – County health officials in rural Iowa are using a new app to connect people to their doctors and cut down on missed appointments. The Health Connector program provides transportation to and from medical appointments in Dallas County – and is geared toward people over 60, those with a disability, people who speak English as a second language, and veterans.

County Community Health Administrator Abigail Chihak said it will help reduce the number of missed appointments, that happen because people don’t have a way to get to the doctor’s office. “It’s an app that allows riders to schedule both their medical appointment and their transportation appointment at the same time,” said Chihak. “So, while they are at the doctor’s office scheduling a follow-up appointment, they can get that transportation for their follow up appointment set up before they even leave.” A one-way Health Connector trip countywide is $5, within the city limits it’s $2.50.

The pilot project is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation and could be expanded to other parts of the country if it’s successful. Chihak said using the Health Connector app is helpful to the patients who need to schedule their doctor’s appointments and a ride to get there, but it will also help reduce costs and improve efficiencies for health care providers. “This also helps our healthcare teams to know if their patients are on the way, and help them to assure that their patients are going to be able to get to their appointments,” said Chihak, “to alleviate the number of no-shows that they have.”

The app also has options for vision impaired users who can get GPS style directions from the bus all the way to the front door of their doctor’s office, even if it’s deep inside a complex medical suite.

(Anita, Iowa) – (Updated 6:12-a.m.) No injuries were reported following a residential structure fire early this (Monday) morning, in Anita. Anita and Wiota Fire crews were dispatched at around 2:19-a.m. to a home at 206 Cherry Street, where smoke was seen coming from the structure. Anita Fire arrived on the scene a few minutes later, and reported flames coming from the home.

In a statement to KJAN News, Anita Fire Chief Eric Steffensen said “When we arrived on the scene, there was a young man stating everyone was out of the house, except two dogs [that were] upstairs.” Steffensen said “We had crews knocking down the fire and a crew rescuing the dogs. [We] got the fire knocked down fast, and the dogs rescued safe!

The home sustained heavy smoke damage. The living room sustained heavy fire damage. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.  Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies assisted at the scene.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says it’s critical to ensure Iowa has enough electricity and upgraded water treatment plants, to support business expansion. “Especially for rural Iowa, we need to figure that out,” Reynolds says. “We’ve got a lot of capacity in rural Iowa, but if you don’t have the load capacity or you don’t have the water treatment capacity, it’s hard for those existing businesses to expand or think about locating there.”

Water treatment plants are expensive. For larger communities, it can cost 12 million dollars for a plant that can handle an average of 10 million gallons per day. Reynolds says the cost for smaller communities, while less, cannot be easily borne by residents who’d pay higher utility bills to pay for it.  “The populations aren’t where they need to be to sustain it,” Reynolds says. The State Revolving Fund provides communities with low interest loans to finance drinking water systems, water treatment facilities and sewers, but Reynolds says she’s asked the director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority to review the range of state incentives that are available — and could be proposed for the future.

“We’ve just kind of delving into that right now and taking a look at how do we then project that for the next 10 to 20 years,” Reynolds says, “and how do I get in front of that and make us competitive when businesses are looking at locating and expanding in Iowa.” The E-P-A recently announced a dozen drinking water systems in Iowa need upgrades to remove so-called “forever chemicals” that are linked to sites where firefighters have used foam to quickly put out fires.

(The following drinking water systems are cited: Buffalo, Burlington, Camanche, Davenport, Dubuque, Muscatine, Osage, Sioux City and Tama as well as Bayer Crop Science near Muscatine, a mobile home park in Muscatine and the Peteschs campground near Bellevue.)

(Rural Greene County, Iowa) – One person died and another was injured during a single-vehicle, rollover accident Saturday night, west of Paton, in rural Greene County. The Iowa State Patrol reports the driver of a pickup truck, 31-year-old Kyle Shank, of Paton, died at the scene. His passenger, 30-year-old Sydney Shank, also of Paton, was injured and transported by ambulance to the Greene County Hospital. The crash happened a little after 10-p.m.

According to the report, the 2017 Chevy Silverado pickup was traveling east on 130th Street, when Kyle Shank attempted to pass another vehicle also traveling eastbound, at a high rate of speed. The pickup’s tires dropped-off the north shoulder of the road, causing the vehicle to go out of control. It entered the north ditch, hit a field drive, and became airborne before rolling several times end-over-end and coming to rest in a corn field.

Kyle Shank was not wearing a seat belt. He was ejected from the pickup and came to rest east of the vehicle. Sydney Shank was wearing a seat belt. A report on her condition was not available.