patient care

Claire Blumer, physician assistant, will join the Community HealthCare System Centralia Clinic in early April. Blumer will see patients Wednesday through Friday each week and is eager to develop personal relationships with her patients.

“No two days are the same in family practice, and I appreciate the variety of ages and medical cases that come with this field,” Blumer said.

She particularly appreciates rural medical practice.

“I...

Community Home Care Equipment, formerly known as DME, offers home medical products to meet special needs.

The shop is located in our Onaga Hospital, but patients around the Community HealthCare System service area are able to call Community Home Care Equipment for help purchasing or ordering an array of items, including the following.

Home oxygen equipment and portable oxygen concentrators Wheelchairs or walkers CPAP machines Breast pumps Ostomy/urostomy supplies Orthopedic...

As COVID‐19 dominated our lives and the news headlines, many people delayed important screenings. March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, so it’s the perfect time to catch up on care you or your loved ones may have missed in 2020.

Research predicts that delays in colorectal cancer screenings during the COVID‐19 pandemic will result in a 12% increase in cancer deaths in the next five years. The good news is colorectal cancer is highly treatable if it’s caught early,...

As he was recovering from COVID-19 last fall, Keith Figge heard some strange news at a follow-up checkup at CHCS: He had a heart murmur. An appointment with a cardiologist revealed that he had a prolapsed mitral valve.

Figge, who was born and raised in Onaga and has served as Onaga High School’s agricultural education teacher and FFA advisor for 27 years, smiles easily and enjoys a good laugh. But that day, he was scared. He was referred to a surgeon, who convinced him that surgery...

Surgery at Community HealthCare System has always been safe, but it recently became even safer. CHCS has earned the Gold Level Go Clear Award from the Association of perioperative Registered Nurses, or AORN, and Medtronic for the highest level of achievement in eliminating hazardous smoke from surgical procedures. 

Surgical smoke is the by-product of energy-generating devices used in many surgeries. The smoke can include toxic chemicals as well as viruses, bacteria, blood, and cancer...

Community HealthCare System clinics in six northeast Kansas locations were recently recognized as achieving Patient-Centered Medical Home status by the National Center for Quality Assurance, or NCQA. PCMH is a model of healthcare delivery focused on treating the whole patient through the lifespan.

“The PCMH designation means that our clinics are set up to offer a higher quality of care. When a patient visits, our care teams focus not just on one episode of care they are providing...

Andy Barnes, APRN, will be joining Community HealthCare System full-time in February 2021. Barnes previously worked on an as-needed basis and provided care in the Emergency Department and family practice clinics at CHCS for two and a half years and continues with Stormont Vail Emergency Room, where he has been for more than 15 years. In his new role at CHCS, Barnes will work three days a week in Centralia Clinic and Onaga Clinic, plus continue to be on call one weekend per month.

“We...

The surge in COVID-19 cases in Kansas has been well documented in the news, and many have heard about full hospitals in Topeka, Wichita, and Kansas City. But rural hospitals are feeling the pinch, too. In northeast Kansas, Community HealthCare System hospitals and clinics have felt the impact, sometimes in ways that are not readily visible to the public.

Testing increasing numbers of patients for COVID-19, experiencing busy emergency rooms, and admitting more COVID-19 patients to the...

Medical bills often look complicated and can be difficult to understand. Community HealthCare System patients have requested bills that list visits and services for all family members on one bill, also known as family billing. We are happy to announce that family billing is coming soon!

Family billing will be available for service dates after December 11, 2020. The bill will show services and payments for each patient in the family on one statement that will be sent...

A project that began with a fundraising gala sponsored by the Caring Community Foundation in 2017 will come to fruition in early 2021.

At the September Community HealthCare System Board of Directors meeting, a bid for construction of an infusion room was awarded to Kendall Construction from Topeka. Construction on the project will begin in late October or early November, and the project should be completed in March.

The purpose of the room is to provide a quiet space for infusion...