(tranquil ambient music) - Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home & Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

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You are, and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health, and we are here.

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- What to do to make sure everyone has a fair shake at healthcare, and 50 years of celebrating the music of Bix Beiderbecke in The Cities.

(upbeat ambient music) COVID-19 proves something so many people know, healthcare is not offered equally to every person.

So what to do about it.

Representative Cheri Bustos and three other house members have created a caucus that will look at healthcare disparities across the nation.

One thing they agree on, it's more than just doctors and nurses, it's a holistic approach to improving neighborhoods in order to improve health.

We talked with the Chief Executive Officer of Community Health Center, Tom Bowman who's been out on the front lines of community healthcare in The Cities.

Did COVID underline just how bad the disparity is among the haves and have nots when it comes to healthcare?

- I think definitely it showed a light on some of the disparities, but I think many of the disparities that we see here in the Quad Cities and around the country have been fairly well-known, but when it starts to come down to an emergency action like the pandemic was, it just had a big bright spotlight on where those disparities lie.

- And take me where the status is right now, especially when it comes to COVID and the vaccinations, because it's so important to get these vaccinations to minority groups and perhaps underserved areas.

Are you being successful in that area right now?

- Yeah, I mean, I think we're making progress.

Certainly we know that there's been vaccine hesitancy, especially in African-American communities and also in other minority groups, for a number of different reasons.

And so, we made broadly available vaccine to anybody that wanted it through a number of mass vaccination sites throughout all of the spring.

And so now we're really focused on trying to tailor that approach, working with faith-based institutions, working with service agencies that work with minority groups.

So it's changed our focus a little bit.

We can't just do mass vaccination clinics, we need to get in and educate about the vaccine, the effect, the effectiveness, and then setup smaller groups.

And that's what we're doing in partnership with the health department and the health system.

And we identify groups and we have a mobile team that will go out and do pop-up type of things where you might be doing 20 or 30 vaccines versus 400 in a day like we were doing during the height of the vaccine season.

So we're just taking a more targeted approach, but we're making progress, we're not where we need to be at.

- And that's what I was wondering is that, let's be honest when the vaccines were first available, people couldn't get them fast enough.

And we saw the senior population.

- Yeah.

- Really go for it as well, because they were so badly hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

So when you're saying it's targeted right now, who are you targeting?

I mean, is it just people who just kind of say, oh, I don't want a vaccine, or is it just people who don't think it's accessible yet?

- Yeah, I don't know that there's people that don't think it's accessible, I think who we're targeting are those that maybe historically, maybe have a mistrust of healthcare or the healthcare system, maybe a mistrust in vaccines.

People that maybe think the pandemic is over or not a big deal in our area, we've seen our numbers come down considerably in the Quad Cities.

So it's over, I don't need to worry about it now.

So really going with those groups and we do that through community health workers and we have a dedicated vaccine team.

And then like I said, working through partnerships and we talked to, it might be a church in Davenport or an African-American church in Rock Island, and we go in and we talk with the pastors and we talk with parish nurses and try to educate those groups.

So it's really, depending on which social service group you're working with, it's how do you get in front of the people that they serve and then educate them on the vaccine and try to convince them to go ahead and get it done.

And some people really have been pausing because they wanna see what the, quote, unquote "longer-term effects" of the vaccine are.

They might not be opposed to it, but they just wanna wait and see.

And so we've gotta educate with the longterm, is really, once you get past 90 days, you hardly see any other negative experiences.

So doing that education and doing it in a targeted way, that's our approach right now.

- You've seen that Congresswoman Cheri Bustos has created this caucus in the house having to do with healthcare disparity.

How important of a step is that?

And what's the one thing you think they need to know?

- It's a very important step, and Congresswoman Bustos has been an advocate for health centers and an advocate in health for a long time now.

The focus of what I've seen of her program, it's really tackling social determinants.

And that is exactly what we do here at CHC and why we were created is to make sure that healthcare, healthcare is driven by a number of factors, you have genetics, you have healthy lifestyles, and then you have medical care, but really the biggest drivers are those social factors, if somebody have affordable housing, if somebody have the food that they need, can they meet their rent and utilities.

If they can't do those things well, then the medical care that they've receive is not gonna move the dial on their overall health.

And so to me, it's very important that she's standing up at the federal level and bringing together other house members to join her in that caucus so that we can come up with what are targeted ways that we can invest in our community so that patients that maybe come to CHC for their healthcare, we have a clean referral system or a smooth referral system so if they also need help with housing or they need help with transportation or education, legal, those types of things will help that person manage not just their medical care, but also their social environment.

And so we know that that will improve overall health in the long-term.

- Community Health Care of course is located in the heart of many of The Cities, of the Quad Cities, getting to that population that live in what you might call an urban area.

The other side of the coin of course is rural areas.

I know that you're expanding your telehealth, does that seem to be the big equalizer now, is the use of telehealth that will help both rural areas as well as some people who really can't make it to the clinic?

- Well, I think telehealth can do a lot of good stuff.

We definitely have expanded the use of telehealth here.

I work with colleagues across the state of Iowa where it's very rural populations and they're also using telehealth.

You know, it can do a lot from initial meet and greet with your doc, get a health history, some of those types of things, we're never gonna fully substitute some of the physical care that needs to happen in the physical exam, but definitely having access, especially on the mental health side, which is a big focus on the telehealth program that tends to lend itself to better use over telehealth.

But there's a lot of screening and other services that can be done via video and audio.

So we think it's one tool in the toolbox.

I think there's other opportunities for more mobile clinics, whether that's a bus or a trailer, CHC has three trailers now, we intend to go out into more rural areas and also work in the urban areas, especially with the homeless population.

So there's a lot of tools there, but telehealth is definitely one that we plan to expand so that we can get to more of the rural areas around the Quad Cities.

- Whenever you take a look at the health, the overall health of an area like the Quad Cities, the actual health care is one of those determinants of how good a community is.

CHC has been a part of each of the communities.

Have you noticed, 'cause I'm sure you keep track of this, is the general health of the area getting better because of the access that you're providing?

- Yeah, that's something that we do.

We do what's called a Community Health Needs Assessment and that's driven by both of the health systems, both the health departments and CHC and a number of other partners.

So we do track a lot of indicators, there are some indicators that are improving and then there's others that are either staying level or not improving.

And so indicators change over time, and it takes a long time, I would say, we've been holding steady, but we do have some that aren't moving the way that we would want.

So for instance, access to healthcare has continued to be a challenge, the number of professionals that we have in the community, and patients knowing where they can go to get primary care services is a challenge, we're in a health professional shortage area.

So just that alone makes it more difficult to address some of those chronic disease states like hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease.

And so there are things that we're improving on, but we haven't gotten everything where we want it to be at.

- And you touched upon another one a little earlier, and that is mental health.

We're coming out of COVID and let's be honest, a person to person to person has dealt with this in their own way and it has been tough.

- Hmm-mm.

Yeah, I don't know that we've even seen the full effect yet.

You know, there's gonna be a lot of mental health challenges.

You of course have the anxiety and the concerns around the pandemic and the disease itself, but what we're seeing, we're on the cusp of a lot of the moratoriums being lifted on housing, and some of that kind of stuff, you're gonna see people that are gonna be without shelter, that raises stress and anxiety, that has a mental health effect.

Kids not being able to be in school, those types of things all play a role so a lot more social isolation and those things.

So that is something that we've worked collaboratively with our mental health partners in the community, Robert Young, Peter French, two of those that's here at CHC.

So we're trying to figure out how do we expand services and make sure people know that they have a place to go that they can have those needs addressed.

- We are actually seeing an uptick in numbers of cases in our region on the Illinois side.

And I can't speak for Iowa right now, but on the Illinois side, we're seeing an uptick basically since the end of June, early July.

Have you seen that as well, more COVID positive cases?

And are you attributing that to anything in particular?

- I mean, it's the Delta variant, I think is what we would point to, it's in our community, it's more contagious.

You know, our vaccination efforts have been robust, but we haven't gotten to a herd immunity and so we still have a lot of unvaccinated individuals in the Quad Cities and they're more susceptible of course to the Delta variant than others.

So we have seen an uptick, it hasn't been a spike yet I wouldn't say.

And here at CHC, we haven't seen a big uptick in positive cases, but we're not testing as much as we once were.

So we'll see, it's something we're watching closely with the health department and we wanted to keep banging the drum on people, get vaccinated, even the things that you're seeing in the hospitals, the vast majority of people that are being hospitalized and, or succumbing to this virus anymore, they're almost a 100% unvaccinated individuals.

So even if you get breakthrough with the Delta variant where somebody gets sick, they're not getting as sick if they've been vaccinated as if they're unvaccinated.

So we still need to keep vaccinating and hopefully we'll keep it from a big spike and hopefully it's just a small increase.

- Are you worried though?

I mean, 'cause it's a small increase as you mentioned seems to come after the fourth of July, a lot of gatherings on the fourth of July, and then you add Bix 7 and you add the street fest and you add all of the other events.

You add the county fairs, you know where I'm going with this.

We've got a lot of crowds.

- Yeah.

- That are meeting, is that giving you some pause?

- I don't know if it's paused, yeah, we worry, we worry about it.

I think every healthcare organization that's been battling the pandemic from the start worries about large crowds, especially if there's unmasked, which it's going to be at this point.

So yeah, we were worried about it and we're prepared for it though.

We still have our services in line where if we need to ramp up operations to address those things, we will.

So yes, we worry about it and we kind of knew this was gonna be coming.

As you roll back restrictions and quarantines and all that kind of stuff, it's just the natural cycle of any infectious disease that's airborne like it is.

So we're worried about it, but we're also prepared to ramp up and address it if we need to.

- Tom Bowman, Chief Executive Officer of Community Health Care.

In a moment Bix Lives now for a half century of celebration, but first we're entering the dog days of summer and there are just a few precious weeks left before school starts.

Laura Adams has great ideas for you, your family, your friends who all wanna go out and about.

(upbeat ambient music) - [Laura] This is Out and About for July 29th through August fifth, get on over to the Green Valley Sports Complex for the 2021 North American FastPitch Men's World Series beginning, July 28, or check out the Bass Federation Junior World Championships in Rapid City, July 28 through 30.

There's plenty of free music available including Thursday Night Groove at Schwiebert Riverfront Park featuring Fantastic Five the 29 and Been There Done That the fifth at seven, and Blues-Rock-it performs that Bass Street Landing on the fifth at seven.

The Live@Five free courtyard series at RME features 10 of Soul, the 30th at five, and Music in the Vineyard with Lojo Russo at Tabor Home Vineyards takes place August first at three.

Plus the Bos Brothers Old Fashioned Threshing Bee takes place in the Erie, Illinois, July 30th, through August first.

Onstage Disney's Newsies based on the film performs a Country Side Community Theater in Eldridge, July 30th through August 8, Richmond Hill Players present Outside Mulligan, August fifth through 15 while the Mississippi Valley Fair kicks off August third and runs through the eighth, plus there's comedy at Renwick Mansion with Tomfoolery on Treemont featuring Eddie Pepitone on the fourth, and comedy returns with improv at The Black Box Theater, Shakespeare performs July 31st at 7:30.

For more information visit wqpt.org.

- Thank you Laura.

We try to spend some time each week highlighting a local musician who's creating original music for audiences in the cities, and that includes Jonathan Turner who performed for us his original, called "Midwest Boy".

(upbeat piano music) ♪ Just a Midwest boy ♪ ♪ And a Jersey girl ♪ ♪ Alone in New York ♪ ♪ Alone in the world ♪ ♪ Night after night the boy and the girl wondered ♪ ♪ If they'd ever find the one ♪ ♪ Or would their hungry hearts be forever born to run?

♪ ♪ They thought where are you, ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ To share with me the rest of my life?

♪ ♪ Just a Midwest boy ♪ ♪ And a Jersey girl ♪ ♪ One day they met online ♪ ♪ Let the feelings unfurl ♪ ♪ With the touch of a mouse they clicked ♪ ♪ Got together the very next day ♪ ♪ The date she was born, ♪ ♪ On the date she was born to sing ♪ ♪ She felt I found you ♪ ♪ I found you ♪ ♪ I found you ♪ ♪ I found you ♪ ♪ For the rest of my life ♪ ♪ Just a Jersey girl ♪ ♪ And a Midwest boy ♪ ♪ She gave him hope ♪ ♪ He brought her joy ♪ ♪ Then one afternoon in June ♪ ♪ She asked him to be his bride ♪ ♪ Oh, it was raining out, the sunshine screams inside ♪ ♪ He said, I love you ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ And I love you ♪ ♪ For the rest of my life ♪ ♪ Now we're so happy to be here on the wedding day ♪ ♪ Fasten your glow, and let you know ♪ ♪ That we love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ And we love you ♪ ♪ For the rest of our lives.

♪ - Jonathan Turner and Midwest Boy performed at the Black Box Theater in downtown Moline.

It was 118 years ago, Bix Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, and 90 years ago when he died in his New York apartment.

And this year it's 50 years that his legacy as a jazz great is being celebrated with the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival.

This year, organizers say they're moving forward to put last year and COVID behind them.

We talked with Jazz Society president Steve Trainor about the big plans for the festival.

So this is the year celebrating 50 years.

It really is tremendous to be able to say that.

- Thank you Jim, you're right, if the people who started this had any idea, and because in the beginning, when they first went to LeClaire Park, they had rainouts the first two or three years, to keep it going, to pay the vendors, to pay the bands, to be viable, they had to take out second mortgages.

So we are over the moon about being 50 years old for the Bix Jazz Festival.

I get goose pimples just talking about it.

We're really gonna dress it up and people are ready to party.

And if I say nothing else, I wanna tell people it's gonna be a safe festival.

If you wanna wear a mask at the event center, at the Rhythm City Casino, you can.

We'll have some to give out.

There will be seating for two or four or regular seating.

We'll have hand sanitation stations.

So we want it to be safe.

And we've been planning 18 months for this.

So we're looking forward to it.

- Yeah, I really did wanna underline that as well 'cause I know you don't wanna look back because last year was tough.

It was virtual and you tried to have a fundraiser along with it in order to help pay for this year.

And as you said, you've had more time to plan for this 50th.

How tough was last year and how did it pave the way for this year?

- Well, normally I wouldn't tell this to most people, but I became physically ill. (chuckles) It was difficult, we had four bands recording at their cities, and we recorded two at the Rhythm City Casino.

It was like a six hour television production.

And it was a lot of stress.

We spent a certain amount of money, and we made about 64% of that back.

So we didn't have too many complaints, but at least we, I didn't wanna have a 50th without having a 49th.

So yeah, and you were there.

We did a heck of a job, all things considered, but pulling together that from out of state, not easy.

- Yeah, not easy at all.

So let's forget about the past, let's go to the future, tell me about this 50th 'cause you got some great bands out there again.

- You know we do.

And I know that people don't recognize the Martino Sextet or cakewalk and jazz band, but some of these have been favorites for a long time.

We've only got really one new band coming.

We've got bands from Denver to Toledo and Minneapolis to St. Louis.

I kid you not, you see pictures all the time Jim of people nodding their head and tapping their toes, these guys will get you out of your seat cheering, the musicianship is so good.

We've got one guy, he plays with symphonies all over the country and we're gonna have, of the eight professional bands, we're gonna have two that are all stars, including our own Davenport's Josh Duffy's Greystone Monarchs.

And then we've got the Bix Youth Band, you think, oh teenagers, they are led by a guy who's been a professional musician for 56 years.

His standards are very high.

He says this band is good and we've already heard them once and they were right on.

So they've had a couple of rehearsals since then.

And I wanna emphasize this is traditional jazz.

I love Dave Brubeck, I love smooth jazz, but traditional jazz is the 20s and the 30s, we get into a little swing of the 40s.

It's fun and funny, it's this close to ribald, wink, wink.

(laughing) So yeah, there's a lot going on and we've got a great lineup and we, I call it a three-day party, we're gonna have a lot of fun.

- Well, the thing that really should be pointed out is they're basically on the stage for 40, 45 minutes.

So it's like you're gonna get exposed to a whole bunch of different interpretations of that period of jazz, and I think that's, it's not just one type of music.

- No, no.

Well put, well put.

We've got three bands that have got singers, we've got, you'll hear slow, you'll hear fast, you'll hear very fast.

(chuckles) But I like to say some of the, one of the song titles I can, the one I can repeat is, "Oh, Baby, Don't Say No, Say Maybe".

I mean, you'll laugh, but they don't write them (chuckles) like that anymore.

And there's some funny stuff.

Yeah.

- Yeah, little wink, wink as you said, I love the fact that you are talking to us from the Bix Museum inside the River Music Experience.

Right behind you is a bunch of pictures, outlining the history of Bix, and I believe there's a famous piece of equipment off your left shoulder there.

Is there a coronet?

I'm not sure, let me double check, your right.

- I'm gonna, bear with me here.

- Yeah, take a look.

- Here we go, here we go.

- Yeah, what is that over there?

It's my left, your right.

Yeah, that's the rest of the museum.

- There's the stage for people who haven't been here.

- Yeah.

There are a lot, there's a lot, I don't know if you can see way over there.

- Yeah, we're looking.

- There's a clarinet.

- We're watching, yeah.

- Yeah, and this is in the lower level of the RME building, River Music Experience, which is at second and main and I'm down, our office is down the hallway and we are, gosh, I'm not sure how that looks, but this is, the Bix Museum then is, and I'm gonna turn it here, and the Bix Museum is just down the hallway.

And then Nate, Nate's standing over there, he's a director.

We're gonna just show you.

- Hey Nate.

(laughing) - We're gonna show you, they've got a piano that was owned by Bix.

I think they've got some.

- I saw that, yeah.

- Some instruments that were owned by Bix.

There is, and I don't think there's interactive, but there's recordings, there's music, there is a ton of stuff here.

I like to say that, okay, here we go, I like to say that you can do this museum in 20 minutes if you have to, but it's a very easy hour and I can recommend it, it's not a big museum, but everything is well situated.

It's easy to walk through and let's see, real quick, it's, what's the website?

Bixmuseum.org.

- Yeah.

- So there you go.

- So, you gave us a great tour, but I think I wanna also underline the fact that we're talking about the 50th year of the Memorial Jazz Festival.

We've got the Bix Museum there in the RME where you are sitting proudly.

This community is celebrating Bix in a stronger way than ever before.

- Yeah.

(laughing) Yeah and let me tell you, for those who can't come as well as those who can, we're going to have a 50th anniversary either DVD or thumb drive, your choice, and you can sign up on for that on our website, you can call and say, I want one of those.

So if you can't come or you wanna remember it, we're gonna have about a 75 minute video that will showcase the entire festival with the interviews from fans and people who've been around, our Bix historian will be there.

So we're gonna offer that.

And you're one of the first that's going to hear this.

We're pretty sure we can pull off some streaming.

There are people who have mobility issues Jim, money issues, they don't have the COVID courage to come.

We get that.

And there are people, particularly last year, I'm glad you brought that up, people were thrilled that they could see it on our YouTube page.

Well, go to our website and you'll be able to learn about the streaming.

We'll have a little paywall, but there's five concerts of five hours each, you can buy one or you can buy all five.

And so we think we can stream it around the world.

And I think that's the way to go.

- Steve Trainor, President of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival on the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device and streaming (tranquil ambient music) on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on The Cities.

(tranquil ambient music) - Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have live stream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

(tranquil ambient music) - At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are, and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health, and we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.