Cheyenne County Hospital
The Cheyenne County Hospital was awarded a Cheyenne County Hansen Community Grant of $10,000 in 2021.
With the health department completing school screenings and adult hearing screening, Tiffany Ochsner, RN has been encountering many barriers to audiology care in the region.
Currently, if a newborn or child fails the hearing screen, they are referred to the Northwest Kansas Educational Service Center(NKESC) in Oakley. However, they no longer have an audiologist there, so the client is forced to travel to Salina or further for care (especially if they have KanCare). This barrier is leading to a poor compliance rate with follow up evaluations and then can impact the child’s learning. Additionally, adults with hearing loss or assistive devices have to travel to Burlington to get services. Many don’t go because they don’t realize they have a problem or don’t take the time to complete the screening. In seeing this need, Mrs. Ochsner, has started screening adults for hearing issues and thus identified an opportunity for Dr. McArthur to outreach to Cheyenne County. There is a hearing booth located in the St Francis Community School, however it is owned by NKESC and they will not allow anyone else to use it. Thus, in order to open a monthly audiology clinic in Cheyenne County, we need to purchase the equipment necessary for Dr. McArthur to analyze her clients. CCHD already owns the hearing screen equipment necessary.
