Mercy Iowa City partnering to host free COVID-19 testing in rural communities

Mercy Iowa City News Releases

Thursday, October 22, 2020 - Mercy Iowa City partnering to host free COVID-19 testing in rural communities

Mercy Iowa City has partnered with Rural Health & Safety of Eastern Iowa and local public health departments to host free COVID-19 testing at a mobile clinic for those who qualify. Leaders with Mercy Iowa City say this accomplishes the Mission of the hospitals and clinics and serves people in more ways than one.

Mercy Iowa City clinics will serve as hosts in Solon on Thursday, October 22 from 3-5 p.m., Tipton on Friday, October 23 from 10 a.m. to noon and Kalona on Tuesday, October 27 from 3-5 p.m.

Providers at the Mercy Iowa City Family Medicine clinic in Kalona say these mobile clinics will help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and having these resources are invaluable and stress the importance of having quality healthcare resources in more rural areas.

“These mobile clinics allow us to meet and treat these patients in a convenient and effective way,” said Rebecca Keuhn, PA-C at Mercy Family Medicine Kalona. “This serves as an opportunity for us to meet our more rural neighbors where they are at in an effort to potentially slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community.”

To qualify for a free test, a person must have either one “High Risk” symptom, two or more “Low Risk” symptoms or a recommendation from a healthcare provider.

Those symptoms include:

High Risk: New cough, shortness of breath/difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell

Low Risk: Fever, headache, muscle/body aches, fatigue, sore throat, runny nose, congestion, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea

Testing is recommended for anyone with symptoms of COVID-19 or who works in close association with many others. People are encouraged to call Mercy On Call at 319-358-2767 or Rural Health & Safety of Eastern Iowa at 319-530-6002 for more information.

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About Mercy Iowa City

Mercy Iowa City is an acute care hospital and regional referral center for southeast Iowa. Mercy has received: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) 5 Star Rating as a Top 2% of all hospitals for the 4th consecutive year, the only hospital in Iowa to do so; the Fortune IBM/Watson Health 100 Top Hospital ranking; the accredited Chest Pain Center with the American Heart Association Gold Plus Achievement Award for Stroke Care; the Top 100 Community Hospitals Award in 2018 and 2019 from Becker’s Review; the Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award for Mercy’s Emergency Care Unit by achieving 95 percent for patient experience for 13 consecutive years; and the Center of Distinction Award from Healogics for Mercy’s Wound and Vein Center. Mercy has 234 acute care beds, 25 private rooms for outpatient surgery, a 26-bed nursery with Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, 28 primary and specialty care clinics, a medical staff of 250 physicians representing all major medical specialties and most subspecialties, and 1,350 employees. It was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1873 and became an affiliate of MercyOne in 2017. To learn more visit www.mercyiowacity.org.