The Fond du Lac County Public Health Officer and her Department are being recognized for their response to the coronavirus pandemic. Agnesian HealthCare/SSM Health has presented Public Health Officer Kim Mueller and the Health Department with a community partner Heath Care Hero Award. Agnesian HealthCare, a member of SSM Health, and the Fond du Lac County Health Department have collaborated to help individuals and families navigate through various health issues, including measles, mumps, rabies, influenza, H1N1 and more, to provide needed medical care as well as education. This partnership’s significance has been amplified through the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in Fond du Lac County much sooner than other areas within the state of Wisconsin. And, from the first day until present day, Agnesian HealthCare and the Fond du Lac County Health Department have worked side-by-side to be present and flexible to address the ever-changing virus. “This honor, which is so rightfully due, represents the sole Health Care Hero Award being given to a community partner within the entire SSM Health Wisconsin region,” according to Katherine Vergos, St. Agnes Hospital president. “We have always been proud of the strong partnership we have with all of our health department partners, but this really solidifies how much our mutually-beneficial collaboration pays off in the long run.”
“Kim Mueller was physically present to view and evaluate the situation,” according to Renee Weier, St. Agnes Hospital Emergency Department director. “The Health Department team was onsite that night well after hours as patient tracing and contact tracing were started in earnest. This team was also present at the hospital’s Incident Command Center meetings to ensure that messages and support to the community were unified and swift.” These side-by-side efforts to provide resources for COVID-19 testing, precautions, education and now vaccinations have led to successful initiatives. “Kim and her team understood early on that we needed to get ahead of this and provide support so the hospital could maintain safe capacity levels,” Weier says. “Kim helped the community to understand the reasons for shut downs and closures to ‘slow the curve.’ We were sharing data and doing live streams to inform the public of real time events and numbers.” T he Fond du Lac County Health Department also stepped forward with a $50,000 donation to the Agnesian HealthCare Foundation to help offset the costs of five employee self-screening kiosks to ensure the safety of employees and all those entering into our facilities. Those kiosks were replicated for use at SSM Health facilities in Madison and Janesville.
