Published in The Pride of the Prairie newspaper
The COVID-19 pandemic has required a lot of businesses to take a hard look at maximizing profitability, and the healthcare sector is no different. To that end, the Bowdle Healthcare System has amended several contracts and is starting to offer services through the facility as opposed to through third parties. One such contract is the Physical and Occupational Therapy contract with Avera Health.
Sarah Heinrich
The Bowdle Healthcare Center will no longer be utilizing Avera Health employed therapists as their main providers, only on a PRN or “as needed” basis. Doctor of Physical Therapy, Sarah Heinrich and Chelsea Vogel, Physical Therapist Assistant, are providing services in the inpatient, outpatient and nursing home settings. Lynae Petersen, an Occupational Therapist, will be providing services beginning at the end of August. The facility also offers Speech Therapy via TiAnn Boggs, who is also currently serving as the Interim Director of Therapy.
Heinrich is originally from the Saint Cloud, Minnesota, area. For her undergraduate degree, she went to Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. To obtain her doctorate in Physical Therapy, she attended Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California. Upon graduation, she went back to the Saint Cloud area to begin practice. While there, she did mostly outpatient work but also had a little time in the local nursing home as well.
So far, she has found that, working in Bowdle, there has been a lot more variety in working with in-patients from the hospital and nursing home to working with outpatients.
She shared, “My favorite part of my job is watching patients get better. So, someone walks in, and they can barely move. They are in a ton of pain thinking, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Then, maybe even by the end of the first session that I have with them, it’s like we can make a lot of progress. We can actually do this. We can get up. We could have less pain. Whatever it is, you can see that progress almost immediately; but over time, you can get them back to fully functioning again. It’s just fun to see people through that process.”
Her husband Joshua is a Registered Nurse at the hospital. In addition, he has taken over the grain farming aspect of his late father’s (Gordon Heinrich) business. Joshua’s sister and brother-in-law, Mindi and Tim Hufman, have taken over the cattle business at the farm.
The couple has been married for almost eight years and have two children – Vaughn, 4, and Maiya, who is almost 2. The family likes to spend time outside, swimming, and going camping.