KANSAS, CITY, MO (AP) – Workers installing a light pole in Missouri cut into a fiber line, knocking out 911 service for emergency agencies in Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota, an official with the company that operates the fiber line said Thursday.

Problems with 911 calls in a Texas city along the U.S. border with Mexico were unrelated, officials said, but the widespread outage created concerns about what was causing the problems.

For most agencies, it turned out to be the result of simple human error.

In Kansas City, Missouri, workers installing a light pole for another company Wednesday cut into a Lumen Technologies fiber line, Lumen global issues director Mark Molzen said in an email to The Associated Press. Service was restored within 2 1/2 hours, he said. There were no reports of 911 outages in Kansas City.

Meanwhile, the difficulties some cellphone callers experienced making 911 calls in in Del Rio, Texas, were apparently because of an outage involving a cellular carrier, not the city’s 911 system, city spokesman Peter Ojeda said. Lumen is not a 911 service provider for Texas.

The outages prompted an investigation from the Federal Communications Commission, it said in a statement. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which houses the National 911 Program, said in a statement that its Office of Emergency Medical Services “is monitoring this issue.”

The outages created confusion for some people trying to reach emergency agencies.

The Dundy County Sheriff’s Office in Nebraska warned in a social media post Wednesday night that 911 callers would receive a busy signal and urged people to instead call the administrative phone line. About three hours later, officials said mobile and landline 911 services had been restored.

In Douglas County, Nebraska, home to Omaha and more than a quarter of the state’s residents, 911 Director Kathy Allen said Lumen informed the agency at 1:42 a.m. Thursday that service was restored, but the county “did experience a few more issues.” Service was fully restored by 4 a.m., Allen said in a statement.

Cut fiber lines and other problems have caused 911 outages in recent years in Nebraska. The issue was worrisome enough that the Nebraska Public Service Commission hosted a hearing on the topic in December.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety said in statement posted on social media Wednesday night that the 911 service interruption occurred throughout the state. The agency noted that texting to 911 was working in most locations and people could still reach local law enforcement through non-emergency lines. Less than two hours later, the agency said service was restored.

Officials in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said during a news conference Thursday that the outage was unprecedented.

“To our knowledge, we have never experienced an outage of this magnitude or duration,” Assistant Fire Chief Mike Gramlick said.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department 911 Communications warned Wednesday evening of an outage affecting 911 and non-emergency calls in a social media post. Calls from landlines were not working, but officials said they could see the numbers of those who called from cellphones.

“Dial on a mobile device, and we will be able to see your number and will call you back right away,” the department posted.

About two hours later, the department posted that service was restored, and everyone who called during the outage had been called back and provided assistance.

In Del Rio, a city of 35,000 residents, police on Wednesday posted that “an outage with a major cellular carrier” was to blame. Del Rio had the opposite problem of Las Vegas — 911 calls from cellphones didn’t work, so those needing help were urged to use a landline or another cell carrier.

The outages, ironically, occurred in the midst of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

 

PIERRE, S.D. – Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson has released important information regarding absentee voting for the June 4, 2024, Primary Election in South Dakota. The absentee voting period will commence on April 19, 2024.

To participate in absentee voting, voters must submit an absentee ballot application form to their county auditor. These forms can be requested from the county auditor or found on the Secretary of State’s website. Given the time required for mail processing and delivery, voters are urged to request an absentee ballot promptly and return it to the county auditor.

Voters can verify whether they have already requested an absentee ballot and check its status by contacting their county auditor or searching the Voter Information Portal (VIP) on the Secretary of State’s website.

When submitting an absentee ballot application form, voters must include a photocopy of an acceptable photo identification card or have the form notarized, as per SDCL 12-18-6.1. Acceptable photo identification cards include a South Dakota driver’s license or non-driver ID card, tribal ID, passport, student ID issued by a South Dakota high school or college, or any other photo ID issued by the United States government. Voters with any questions are encouraged to contact their county auditor.

In addition to absentee voting by mail, voters also have the option to absentee vote in person up to the day before the election or vote in person on Election Day. Those seeking an absentee vote in person should contact their county auditor during office hours. On Election Day, polls will be open from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm local time. Information on polling locations and sample ballots can be found on the Secretary of State’s website’s Voter Information Portal (VIP).

 

WAYNE COUNTY, NE – A husband and wife riding on a trike motorcycle in Northeast Nebraska have died after a weekend crash.

The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says there was a two-vehicle crash on Sunday, April 14 at the intersection of U.S. Highway 35 and 566th Ave, located east of Hoskins.

The sheriff’s office says at about 7:45 p.m. a westbound vehicle was stopped at the intersection and was yielding to traffic so it could turn south onto 566th Ave. At the same time, a westbound Honda trike rear-ended the stopped vehicle.

The two people on the trike, Jerry Sievers and his wife Karen Sievers, were thrown from the vehicle after the collision. According to the sheriff’s office, Jerry was driving the trike and Karen was the passenger. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver of the stopped vehicle has been identified as Shawn Wiedeman. The sheriff’s office says a passenger in Wiedeman’s vehicle was taken to a Norfolk, Nebraska hospital with minor injuries. The passenger has since been released.

The sheriff’s office says a portion of Highway 35 was closed for about two hours while the crash was investigated.

 

SOUTH DAKOTA (SD News Watch) – To the uninitiated, taking a sick resident of a nursing home to a hospital or emergency room might not seem like a big deal.

But those trips can be brutal for elderly patients and facility staff – often requiring the hooking or unhooking of medical equipment, bundling of patients into warm clothes, helping them in their wheelchair or walker into a van and enduring wait times to see a nurse or doctor who doesn’t always have access to their medical records.

“It’s not good for anyone to go to an emergency department but especially for the elderly population,” said Josh Hofmeyer, CEO of Dow Rummel Village senior-living campus in Sioux Falls. “If we can avoid sending someone out (for medical care), it makes a big difference.”

The best way to avoid stressful trips and provide more medical care within an elder care facility is through the use of telemedicine services. That’s why Hofmeyer and others in the South Dakota long-term care industry are excited about two bills that passed in the 2024 legislative session and have since been signed by Gov. Kristi Noem.

Senate Bill 209 will offer $5 million in grants to long-term care facilities for implementation or expansion of telehealth services. That measure was funded through American Rescue Plan Act dollars, and the grants will be administered by the state Department of Health.

A separate measure, Senate Bill 80, will provide $2 million in grants to providers of elder care services for technology innovations that can “improve the quality of life and health outcomes of elderly residents and support health care workers.” That fund will use state general fund money for grants administered by the Department of Human Services. Both measures resulted from the 2023 legislative summer study session on the long-term care industry.

Telemedicine providers, such as Sioux Falls-based Avel eCare, maintain a stable of nurses and physicians who can be called upon at any time to provide medical care through an internet connection and video link. For long-term care residents, they can get medical diagnosis and care almost immediately and at any time with help from a facility staff member in the room and a medical practitioner working remotely.

The Dow Rummel campus has used telemedicine in its skilled-nursing care wing for several years. The new grant program could allow the facility to expand telehealth services to other stages of its care continuum on the campus that hosts about 315 residents.

“When you’re dealing with the volume of residents that we have here on campus and all their different health care needs, there’s a lot that comes up that you need to be able to address, so having this access to telemedicine 24/7 has been really, really helpful,” Hofmeyer said. “It’s the wave of the future.”

The $2 million pool for innovation grants could help more people remain at home longer instead of moving into assisted-living facilities as they age, said state Sen. Sydney Davis, R-Burbank, the lead sponsor of both health care grant bills. Innovation grants could pay for more home monitoring devices and mobile diagnostic equipment that can be used by patients in their homes or during in-home health visits by practitioners, Davis told News Watch.

”We need to find alternative models of care to keep patients safe and healthy in their homes as long as possible because it’s where they want to be,” she said. “It’s better for them and less costly for the state.”

A key component of the innovation grant legislation is that it requires recipients to monitor the effectiveness of the new technology or equipment and file a report to the state on what worked or what didn’t, said Davis, a nurse anesthetist who is also a rancher.

“Maybe some of these investments would be worthy of us continuing to make them or to put more dollars into this in the future based on good outcomes. Or maybe the providers can make those investments on their own moving forward,” she said. “We can complement each other and give as much flexibility as we can so medical providers can best take care of our elderly folks.”

The field of telemedicine has been growing for decades but saw a major push forward during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person health visits were dramatically curtailed.

South Dakota is a leader in the telemedicine industry, with Avel eCare launching in 1993 and a massive expansion in the works for telehealth provided by Sioux Falls-based Sanford Health.

Its $350 million Virtual Care Center will include a 60,000-square-foot facility being built on the Sanford Sports Complex just west of the Sioux Falls Regional Airport.

With Avel eCare, subscribers install their own internet connectivity and are then provided a movable diagnostic cart with a video screen before paying a prearranged subscription fee for the service, said Victoria Walker, M.D., medical director of senior care at Avel.

A prearranged subscription fee allows long-term care facilities to receive telemedicine support from geriatric-trained doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and pharmacists 24/7/365,  including urgent assessments, the ordering and interpretation of diagnostic tests, prescription medication support and  treatment orders, Walker said.

Avel practitioners access the patient’s current medical records, both from hospital visits and those from within the long-term care facility to assure good continuity of care.

Walker was recently serving as an on-call practitioner for Avel when she was linked up to a nursing home where a man in his 60s had suffered a stroke and was being fed through a tube. He was vomiting and in great discomfort and potentially at risk but did not want to go to a hospital. Walker was able to use the Avel telemedicine tools to evaluate him and recognize that he had gastroenteritis and was severely dehydrated. She was able to order the needed fluids, which were given intravenously on-site. The patient was stabilized without requiring a transfer to the hospital.

“A picture is worth a thousand words, so when we can see and listen to somebody directly, we get a pretty quick sense of what’s needed in the situation and get the ball rolling,” she said.

Walker said the new state grant program is funded well enough to bring telehealth to more long-term care properties and patients.

“I think it can make a pretty big difference. And once we have that infrastructure in place it kind of greases the wheels a little bit to tap into new gizmos as they come along,” she said. “This is a really proven approach to providing high quality care to our elderly population and we’ve done nothing except make it stronger and better.”

Mark Deak, executive director of the South Dakota Health Care Association, which represents the long-term care industry in the state, said the two sets of grant monies will provide a much-needed boost of support for residents and staff throughout the troubled nursing home industry across the state.

Deak, who testified before the Legislature in favor of both grant programs during the session, said 17 long-term care facilities have closed in South Dakota over the past five years, largely due to financial struggles and a worker shortage.

“Obviously, long-term care has faced incredible challenges, some very unique challenges,” he said.

Deak said the state provided significant support to the industry by raising the Medicaid reimbursement rate paid to providers by 25% in 2023 and by another 4% this year.

The new telehealth and innovation grants will improve patient care and hopefully improve recruitment and retention of certified nursing assistants, who form the backbone of staffing in the long-term care industry, Deak said.

Providing access to remote health care and implementing other innovations in elder care will reduce stress for employees because they won’t have to worry as much about keeping residents safe and healthy and won’t have to prepare as many patients for transport to hospitals or emergency rooms, he said.

“The biggest thing is it will make it easier for them to treat a resident on site, which is a big deal,” Deak said.

Some innovations that have been discussed center around technologies that can help predict which nursing home patients are prone to falls, can catch signs of sepsis infections earlier and aid in devising nutrition plans for patients, he said.

Both grant programs could be especially beneficial in rural areas of the state.

“Rural areas just have very unique challenges due to location when it comes to attracting staff and providing the services they need to,” Deak said. “They don’t have access to the medical support that you’d have in an urban setting.”

The $7 million in combined grants won’t solve all challenges in the long-term care industry but might provide a boost to facilities with significant financial hurdles, he said.

“Certainly more would be better, but I do think it’s a substantive move in the right direction,” Deak said. “I think it will make a material difference.”