It seems as though everyone looks forward to the High Mountain Hay Fever bluegrass festival each summer in the Valley.

With the broad range of top quality homespun entertainment, sometimes the purpose of the festival gets put up on a high shelf. But the festival has a very important underlying purpose beyond great entertainment. The “HMHFBF” raises a significant amount of money to improve medical care in the Wet Mountain Valley through support of the Custer County Medical Center.

 In 2007, the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival raised more than $47,000 through sponsorships for the Custer County Medical Center. The center utilized these funds as seed money, and through a successful grant request, leveraged them into $140,000 to upgrade medical laboratory and x-ray departments.

This is important because it enabled clinic personnel to provide more accurate diagnoses more quickly. This way, patients receive treatment that is more specific for their maladies and receive it much more quickly.

One item the medical center purchased was a new state-of-the-art blood analysis machine which allows quick and accurate blood analysis including hemoglobin levels, hematocrits and white blood cell counts. The center was able to also purchase a new blood chemistry analysis machine that performs most routine blood chemistry tests and obtains results on site while a patient is being seen. In the past, most of the blood work had to be mailed out for analysis.

The center also updated x-ray equipment to perform digital studies and transmit x-ray images electronically to be read by a radiologist anywhere in the country. This shortened the turn-around time for x-ray diagnosis from two weeks to minutes.

In 2008, the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival clinic sponsorships raised almost $70,000. This money was matched with $180,000 in grant funds to upgrade clinic and emergency medical equipment on the ambulance. EMS is upgrading its three lead EKG/defibrillators to 12 lead. These new machines will also greatly shorten the time in which staff can send information to the emergency departments and cardiac teams at destination hospitals. EMS is also converting to electronic patient care reports, which will greatly enhance the clinical notes provided to hospital personnel when the ambulance arrives at the hospital.

In the past, the paramedic in the back of the ambulance with a patient would have to start an IV drip in the patient’s arm, start oxygen, take blood pressure and treat any urgent wounds or symptoms, all the while recording everything by hand with detailed accuracy. All that time, the ambulance would be rushing down the mountain which made those notes not only hard to write, but difficult to read, also.

Now the EKGs and other ongoing assessments are electronically transmitted as the ambulance travels.

While this may not seem significant, emergency medicine recognizes a “golden hour” during which immediate treatment for heart attacks and strokes, among other medical events, saves lives and preserves organ functions.

With a great amount of time saved in letting hospital personnel know exactly what is happening to a patient in the back of a Custer County ambulance, residents and visitors can expect a more successful outcome from the hospital visit.

The latest grant applications have been filed under the project name “Achieving Standard of Care.”

The clinic has upgraded its ability to dispose of biohazards. With this advance, the sheriff’s office and Sustainable Ways also want to make use of this new technology making disposals less toxic.

Microscopes, examination tables and infusion pumps which have served the people of the community since the clinic opened in the forest service building 36 years ago have finally been upgraded. These are important for the stabilization of patients before being transferred to a hospital.

EMS is completing the build-out of the ambulance facilities started five years ago since the current facility will no longer be available after several months.

This will include a training center and overnight quarters. The medical center has a standard of a ten minute response time. This new facility will help make that a reality.

According to clinic director Terry Nimnicht, every Custer County ambulance run has a paramedic on board now. Paramedic is the highest rating for emergency medical personnel.

Nimnicht reports that each year the center pays $50,000-$60,000 in uncompensated care. Without the bluegrass festival, there would be no money to see indigent patients without passing on the price of their care to other patients.

The clinic has also been able to take a greater role in community outreach medicine, with the annual health fair, providing space for a public health nurse and county coroner, buying vaccines for the public health program in the Valley and recently, sponsoring Club American WMV as that facility seeks to find a place in the community for preventive health.

Recently, a new nurse practitioner was added to the clinic staff.

It is easy to see how far local medical care has come since the days, not too long ago, when Augie Menzel’s funeral hearse served as the only ambulance in town and the only x-ray machine was a donated World War II model which took positive pictures instead of the usual negatives.

The Custer County Medical Center would certainly be further from its goals of providing first class care to the county’s residents and visitors if it weren’t for the funds raised by the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival.

– Joanne Canda