Wine, Wreaths And Whimsy For The Heart

The seventh annual Kearney County Health Services Auxiliary benefit, Wine, Wreaths and Whimsy, will be held Sunday, November 14 at the Kearney County fairgrounds.
This year’s theme for the benefit, The Beat Goes On, is fitting as the proceeds from the benefit auction will go towards the purchase of Cardiac Stress Test equipment for the hospital.
In the past six years, the proceeds of the auction of homemade food, holiday wreaths and specialty baskets has provided over $80,000 for the betterment of Kearney County Health Services departments.
Proceeds from the 2009 Wine, Wreaths and Whimsy helped to purchase the new digital mammography system currently in use at KCHS.
The Cardiac Stress system is an integrated diagnostic heart stress equipment system.  The system integrates with 12 lead EKG capabilities, being able to provide the most extensive monitoring data collection to benefit physician and patient.  The patient gets comprehensive monitoring while making it easier for the physician to interpret quickly.  It provides continuous EKG monitoring while automatically running the treadmill at stress test protocols.
A Cardiac Stress test is the recording of the heart’s activity while exercising.  The heart is monitored by using electrodes to record the electrical activity it makes.  The heart’s activity will also be monitored by seeing how the blood pressure and pulse change over the course of the test.
The reasons for a stress test is to check the health of the heart.  During physical activity, the body needs higher levels of oxygen, which it gets from the blood.  To get the blood to the organs faster during exercise, the heart has to work harder.  A cardiac stress test is used to see if your heart still works well, even when it is working hard, or “stressed”.  The test is most often done to evaluate if complaints of chest pain are related to the heart; to determine if arteries to the heart have blockages or narrowing; to identify an irregular heart rhythm or passing out that occurs during or after exercise; to monitor the heart’s response to treatment or procedures.
The benefits of the new system would immensely improve the clarity of our 12 lead EKG printouts and give more comparison data.  Even more important is the fact that our current cardiac stress testing equipment does not have the capability to have integration with our treadmill.  Therefore, we need to coordinate between EKG monitoring and treadmill function.  
This integration will provide more conclusive stress testing data for the patients being evaluated.  The new treadmill will be beneficial to KCHS because the existing treadmill is used for multiple circumstances such as Cardiac Rehab, Stress Echoes, Nuclear Stress Testing and maintenance patients.
The proceeds of the Wine, Wreaths and Whimsy are a tax deductible donation to the facility, helping keep state-of-the-art equipment available to benefit all residents of Kearney County and the surrounding area.