Newsworthy

Dear Community Partners,

Here are today’s updates:

• Building for Our Future: Building Blocks Expansion
• “To Your Health” on WIBW-TV Tonight: Dr. Brad Poole
• Congratulations to Jennifer Sodergren!

Building for Our Future: Building Blocks Expansion

Stormont Vail Health is implementing a plan to expand our onsite childcare center, Building Blocks. The Stormont Vail Board of Directors has approved the capital to fund the expansion, demonstrating our commitment to grow early childhood care and educational options for children of Stormont Vail team members.

The proposal is to renovate Stormont Vail’s 515 S.W. Horne facility into an additional childcare center. Immediately following that work, we will proceed with a renovation of our existing Building Blocks child care location. These projects will be phased to allow us to continue current day care operations.

Once completed, we will have capacity to care for more than 320 children of Stormont Vail team members between our two locations, more than doubling our capacity. A planning committee is working alongside our Building Blocks Board of Directors to rapidly implement this initiative.  We plan to have the Horne location completed by October and Lane construction to be completed by February 2023.

In addition, we are planning to extend the hours of operation to accommodate our Stormont Vail clinical and support team members who work 12 hour shifts.  This will be a unique offering for a childcare center in our state.

Expanding child care options for our team members became an important focus for our organization during the past two years. A number of team members were challenged with the closures of child cares and schools after the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. In addition to providing care at Building Blocks, we temporarily operated a program for school age children in the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center when it was unable to be open because of the pandemic. That program was no longer needed after schools resumed in-person learning and the children’s museum reopened to the public.

Building Blocks opened more than 20 years ago with Stormont Vail supporting the initiative from the start. Our team members have shared that high quality, affordable child care is important to them and their families as they serve our patients in clinics and the hospital. The expansion plans will support Stormont Vail families, but will also have a ripple effect in the community through the opening of additional child care options, ensuring a great start for a future generation and providing a recruitment and retention tool for our health system. This is a project that supports our children, our team and our community. Together we are creating an amazing resource and pillar to support our team.

 “To Your Health” on WIBW-TV Tonight: Dr. Brad Poole

Dr. Bradley Poole will share information about this Saturday’s Sports Physical event during tonight’s “To Your Health” segment at 10 p.m. on WIBW-TV, Channel 13.  Cotton O’Neil Orthopedics and Sports Medicine is hosting the sports physical day from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Cotton O’Neil Kanza Park.

The sports physicals given at this clinic will be valid for the 2022/2023 sports season. The event is open to all middle school and high school student athletes. Each physical will cost $20. The student athletes do not have to be an active patient of Stormont Vail or Cotton O’Neil. The WIBW segment will typically repeat at 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. Fridays on 13 News This Morning and be posted on wibw.com.

Congratulations to Jennifer Sodergren!

Our April 2022 Person of the Moment awardee is Jennifer Sodergren! Jenny is an Occupational Therapist and is so deserving of this award because of the passion and heartfelt care she exudes every day. This excerpt written by one of Jenny’s team members gives a fantastic example:

“Jenny was seeing a patient with a tracheostomy tube. He was using a paper towel to wipe his trach. When his paper towel was on the floor, Jenny threw it away to prevent cross contamination of the trach. However, the patient was very upset as that was his last Viva paper towel. Jenny went to the store over her lunch break and purchased him six rolls of Viva paper towels. The patient was very touched by this and appreciative of her efforts.

Jenny frequently goes out of her way to show this kindness to patients and staff. Jenny helped to prevent infections and went above and beyond to show care and compassion.” Jenny perfectly embodies the heart and soul of Stormont Vail Health and we are incredibly honored to have her on our team. Congratulations, Jenny, on being named April 2022 Person of the Moment.

We together,

Dr. Kenagy