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New faces are joining the staff at Mountrail County Health Center, including a new director of nursing and a new nurse practitioner. April Warren started as a new DON on the hospital side last month. A familiar face, Carol Hynek, is now a new nurse practitioner at the facility.

April Warren started on August 21 and brings a wide range of experience to the job. With a doctorate in organizational leadership, she has been an FNP since 2008. She has worked in emergency medicine, mental/behavioral health and psychiatry. She also founded a private practice in Minot, which she operated for seven years before closing the practice in 2020 because of covid.

She was the department chair of the nursing program at MSU and worked as a nurse practitioner with inpatient psychiatry at Trinity Health. She also was an advanced practice provider and behavioral health division lead. She says that she has always had two or three jobs at a time until now.

Coming to MCHC, she says she is passionate about nursing and clinical excellence. She has a love for rural health. A colleague had reached out to her about the open position and asked if she would be willing to consider the job. While she was not looking for a change, she says that she visited with MCHC and made the decision. She said that she loved the people and the facility’s commitment to the community in providing the best healthcare.

Looking at her job, she says that healthcare is a challenge right now, including staffing crises everywhere. That is where she says rural healthcare becomes even more important, sharing the commitment to clinical excellence and providing comprehensive quality care to the residents of Stanley and the surrounding areas.

She and her husband, Chad, live between Minot and Burlington. Chad is a federal contractor on the Minot Air Force Base and retired military. They have two daughters, Emily and Alaina. Both daughters attend UND and the couple have been empty nesters as of August 18.

In her free time, she says she loves to fish and go to the lake. She also loves to visit family in the UP of Michigan, where her husband calls home. Her parents live in Bismarck.

Carol Hynek will be working in the clinic and ER as a nurse practitioner, having started on August 23. She says that she will be working on her schedule as she continues her facility training, but will be seeing patients on a part-time basis in the clinic.

Hynek was an RN for 15 years, having only worked at MCHC as an RN. She has worn many hats over the years, including at the hospital and nursing home. She has been the care coordinator at the nursing home. She has assisted Dr. Williams with podiatry surgeries. She also helped with the cardiac rehab and taught the medication assistance course. When the facility implemented electronic health records, she was the clinical lead.

Hynek decided to go back to school and earned her doctorate degree in nursing practice and family nurse practitioner from the University of Mary, graduating in April of 2023. She says that she always wanted to advance her education to this level and also wanted to come back to Stanley to practice as this is home.

She too looks at the struggle of staffing rural healthcare. She says that her goal is to provide quality care to the rural residents in the community and surrounding area. Advancing her education, she says, is the best way she could do that and serve the people of the community.

Growing up in Kerkhoven, MN, she met her husband, Blair, at NDSU. The couple has lived in Stanley for the past fifteen years. They have five children, Jack, Ben, Jacob, Abe and Ella. Her hobbies include gardening, outdoor activities and traveling, especially to the mountains. They also include chasing after her five children and all of their activities.

Hynek says that she is excited about returning to MCHC. She says it is a great environment with great staff and a positive attitude. She is excited to work with the clinical staff throughout the facility. As a new provider, she is learning from the current providers. She says as she continues to grow and become more confident as a provider, she looks forward to providing high quality, evidence based care to our rural population. “We are always looking to improve the care we give at MCMC”, says Steph Everett. CEO. “I am thrilled to have April and Carol join our team. This allows us to become even stronger in our goal of providing well-rounded, truly amazing Healthcare for Mountrail County and beyond.”

Tara Schaefer-Nygaard is now offering mental health therapy services at the Mountrail County Health Center once a week. Originally from Minot, she has a Master of Social Work and is a licensed clinical social worker. She received her Bachelors in Social Work from Minot State University in 2002 and her masters from Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho in 2012.

She says that being a helper is a family thing. She grew up in a large family and her parents always described her as a helper. She began her career in social work working with children and families and says that she knew that she could do more than just casework. She worked in various ways with social work including foster care case management, the home and community based services program, as well as the foster to adoptions programs and infant development.

It was while she was working with infant development that it struck her that she was capable of doing more and needed to do that. Another factor was when they returned to Minot and she had the opportunity to work at the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. That, she says, was eye opening.

While there she realized that it was important to be equipped for expanding knowledge, tackling different behavior issues, and fine tuning the skills. As a clinical team member, it sparked her to learn more. She then moved on to working at the Minot Air Force Base.

It was during this time that she became certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. This is an evidence based trauma therapy that helps clients work through not only trauma, but also depression, anxiety, and other disorders.

She describes it as an amazing process to experience with a person. It is transformational for them to come through to the other side of a trauma and those symptoms to not have that power over them any longer. There is, she says, a resonance that will happen when they sense where it is held, blocked or stored, and then see the relief and physical change in the person. It is very powerful, she also says it almost feels selfish to feel rewarded after being a part of this and see them take control over the things that have controlled them.

The decision to go into private practice, she says, came when she decided it was time to be her own boss, choosing to set her own guidelines on how she wanted to work. That transition came in mid-October of last year. She opened New Hope Counseling in November of 2018, seeing a limited number of patients per week, but decided to make the change to full-time.

She says that she recognized the limited number of professionals available and that it was even more challenging and difficult for clients in rural communities. She says that she was able to make the choice to expand to a rural outreach clinic. She reached out to Mountrail County Health Center in Stanley and the process began. Her first day in Stanley was Wednesday, Feb. 1.

She chose Wednesdays as her one day per week because there are fewer holidays in the middle of the week. That means less need to reschedule appointments for clients. The other four days of the week are spent at her office in Minot.

Patients are able to self-refer to her clinic. They can also be referred by their primary care physician, a school, law enforcement or a social worker. Most insurance companies will cover therapy, depending on the patient’s coverage plan.

As therapy becomes more accepted, she says her goal is to help patients focus on their internal resiliency, helping them to build the skills to get through their challenges and difficult times. That includes helping them learn how to help themselves, sit with the discomfort knowing that when it resolves they will be okay so they can move through to the other side.

While she can work with younger children depending on the circumstances, she prefers to work with patients ages ten and up. The majority of her experience is with children ages ten and up, adults and family therapy.

Her love for what she does is apparent, saying that therapists need to love what they do. There can be challenging cases and difficult things to hear, but the best part is seeing patients heal and be part of that journey. She says that it is an honor to walk alongside them and earn that trust. The biggest honor, she says, is to have that trust.

Tara has also just been notified that she has been nominated to be a member of the Western Area Health Education Advisory Board. That board works with area colleges to get North Dakota residents back and into rural areas. She says it is another way she can impact bringing more providers to rural communities.

Tara’s husband, Kurt, is an oil gauger at Kinder-Morgan and a retired Army veteran. Between them, they have five children that all live in North Dakota and they are expecting their first grandchild in July. Kurt is originally from the Watford City area and they met after he retired from the Army and returned to North Dakota.

In their free time, they enjoy camping. They also enjoy spending time with family. Family time is a primary focus for them.

“This has been almost a decade in the making,” says Steph Everett, CEO of the Mountrail County Medical Center. “Janel and I have been working every angle to find mental health providers for our clinic.  It’s a true blessing we can bring Tara in once a week. And there is more to come with this Specialist line in the near future for MCMC!” You can schedule appointments with Tara Schaefer-Nygaard by contacting Mountrail County Health Center at 628-2505.

Another provider has joined the staff at the Mountrail County Medical Center this month in the clinic. Brittany Haugtvedt, FNP started on Monday, Jan. 17. She will be seeing patients Tuesday through Friday at the clinic.

Growing up in Beach, ND, she received her undergraduate degree at the University of Mary and her graduate degree at UND. She worked for five years at the Minot Health Clinic and was a nurse there as well.

She says that she chose to become an FNP because she wanted something better for her family. When she was accepted into the program, she found that it was a way for her to offer a different approach to finding the cause of diseases in her patients and assist them to improve their lives.

She will be working in the clinic seeing family practice patients. She says that her favorite thing is to help patients find the root cause for their illness or disease and help focus on wellness.

She says that her focus will primarily be patients twelve and older, although she looks forward to helping all patients.

She will be bringing different testings and treatments to the table with her practice. That includes advance hormone testing, food sensitivity testing, and gene sight testing which helps find what medicines work best when treating patients with conditions like anxiety and depression. MTHFR testing looks for gene mutations in patients that lead to conditions. She will also be offering advanced stool testing, thyroid management, and male and female bioidentical hormone replacement management as well as 3×4 genetic testing.

In the future, she also hopes to bring PRP, or plasma rich protein, treatments to the practice. PRP is a process of drawing blood from a patient and then spinning it down to pull off the plasma. This has benefits for patients in joint injections to help with cellular regeneration. It is also used for “vampire facials”, a process using micro needling and plasma regeneration. She says that PRP is also beneficial in sports injuries instead of steroids. It helps create regeneration in the body, often allowing it to heal internally and prolong the need for surgery.

She says that she looks forward to offering modern or functional medicine that focusses on the use of supplements, rather than just medication to help patients promote their health and wellness.

In the future, she also hopes to offer sclerotherapy for spider vein treatment for patients. This process helps decrease the appearance or erase those spider veins.

About her move to MCMC, Haugtvedt says that the facility has welcomed her with open arms. The change, she says, will allow her to better her family life by providing her with more family time. While she was not expecting to make the change, she says it all came together and presented her with an opportunity she  was interested in. She wanted more time at home, and even with the time spent on the road, it will even out and be a much better fit for her family.

She also says that she looks forward to meeting new patients and helping them find their inner wellness. She loves what she does. That includes helping patients find the complex answers to change their lives as they deal with illness. Getting to the root problem is important to a positive outcome.

Haugtvedt lives in Burlington with her husband, Chad, who works for BNSF. They have three children ages eleven, ten and nine. Her hobbies include spending time with her family and anything outdoors including hunting, camping and fishing. She enjoys cooking and also repurposing items. She used to have a business called Sweet Repeats that was based on repurposing items, but now she says she does it just for fun.

“We are excited to have Brittany join our family at MCHC. We originally interviewed Brittany for the ER position we had available. We enjoyed her energy and willingness to learn more for that position. So we had to figure out a way to bring her to MCMC! We love the new services she can offer for our clinic,” said Steph Everett, Administrator/CEO/Foundation Director/PR and Marketing Director Mountrail Bethel Home/Mountrail County Medical Center/Mountrail County Health Foundation.

Mountrail County Health Center in Stanley hosted a Drive Through COVID-19 testing event on Friday, Apr. 24. Testing started at 10:00 a.m. and ran through 2:00 p.m. although the lineup of vehicles of those waiting to be tested started more than an hour before.

Testing was organized through staging using the Stanley High School parking lot. Those looking to be tested were asked to report to the High School where they were assigned a number to their car. Mountrail County Sheriff Corey Bristol and several of the department officers, Mountrail County Emergency Manager Warren Bogert along with the Highway Patrol were at the school to coordinate that portion of the event.

When told by Health Center staff, they would then send a set number of vehicles down 8th Avenue towards the hospital. Along the way, intersections were being controlled by members of the Stanley Public Works and Stanley Police Department to assure smooth movement of not only those who were waiting to be tested, but also those cars that were just trying to go from one area of the city to another.

At the Health Center, they were met by staff with the information forms prior to testing. They then moved along the driveway area on the east side of the complex for testing. Tests were administered by staff and then brought back into the “command center” where they were documented and packaged for transport to the State Lab for testing.

The Health Center was grateful to all that helped make the testing a success, saying they could not have successfully done this test without coordination and manpower from the Stanley Police Department, Mountrail County Sheriff’s office, Stanley Public Works, and the Highway Patrol. They kept everything moving as smoothly as possible, without clogging up city streets with traffic, and that was no small feat. People participating were in awe of the teamwork as they drove from the staging area and down 8th Avenue to MCHC.

Additional thanks went to Marilyn Gaebe, who provided a delicious lunch for staff and kept them energized for the entire day. They appreciated Estvold Oilfield Services, specifically Jake and Kelsey, for allowing them to use their coolers to safely transport tests from Stanley to Bismarck testing labs and the “best COVID-19 courier in the state” Rodney Essler.

They also expressed their thanks to the community saying, “We would not try to offer these testing services if we did not think that people would show up to be tested, and our community SHOWED UP! It was a steady stream of cars the entire four hours.”

Last but not least, they expressed a personal thank you to the staff of the Mountrail County Health Center. From traffic control, to gathering information from each test subject, to registering each test subject, and properly marking each test to the Providers performing the swabs, and then our lab processing each test from 10:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and to everyone inside the building allowing business to proceed as usual. This was pointed out as teamwork at its ultimate finest.

In the span of a little over 4 hours, the Mountrail County Health Center staff were able to test 189 vehicles, totaling 357 tests that included residents from throughout the county and a few out of county residents. “Thank you to everyone who came to get tested so we can gather more data about how this virus is impacting our community and to start working on getting North Dakota open again,” they said.

The drive through testing helped support Governor Doug Burgum’s goal of increasing testing to start the work on smartly reopening the state.

This testing clinic was a group effort between administration and providers.

Additionally, per direction of the state, the facility is also testing all of their residents and employees starting last week and continuing on Monday.

As of Monday morning, tests completed in Mountrail County had increased from 524 on Friday to 892 on Monday. One new positive was recorded on Monday, up from the cumulative 33 since the first tests administered in the county. That new positive is part of the testing done on Friday and is a case from New Town. Of the 892 tests recorded in the county thus far, 858 have returned negative. Not all of Friday’s test results were included in Monday’s numbers.

This article has been republished by the gracious consent of the Mountrail County Promoter.

April 20th, 2020

RE: Mountrail County Health Center COVID-19 Drive Through Testing

Mountrail County Health Center is committed to providing our community the best care possible during the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic. We therefore are offering a complimentary “Drive Through” testing event at our facility on Friday, April 24th from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.  We are strongly encouraging residents of Mountrail County who have not previously had access to  drive-through testing to be screened.

Details

COVID—19 testing will be conducted at door 13 at the back of our building.  Please see the map for further instruction.

Please bring your Photo ID.  MCHC employees will register patients while they wait in line.  Please remain in your vehicle with your window rolled up unless instructed otherwise by MCHC staff.

Testing will be offered on a first come first serve basis.  Please be advised that once you enter the driveway for testing, there IS NOT an area to turn around.  You will need to wait until it is your turn to be tested in order to exit. 

You will have a limited amount of time with the provider conducting this test.  The drive through testing clinic is NOT the time to discuss symptoms or other medical conditions with a doctor.  If you need 1:1 time with a provider, or are experiencing severe respiratory symptoms, please do not use the drive through clinic.  Call the Rural Health Clinic at 701-628-2505 so our nurses can triage you individually and get you the care you need. 

If you have questions about this process, please call 701-628-2424.