South Dakota Nurse Embeds in Colony Life to Transform Care

OLIVET, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota nurse is showing how far trust can go with her work to improve health care in the state's Hutterite communities.

Kerri Lutjens has spent years serving eight colonies of the Hutterites, a deeply religious people with ancestral ties to the Amish who mainly live in farming communities in the Plains and Upper Midwest.

Lutjens has worked particularly hard to vaccinate children. In the two years since she started giving vaccinations, the rate of children who are up-to-date has skyrocketed from about 13 percent to well over 90 percent.

That caught the eye of the Centers for Disease Control, which praised her work and the cultural sensitivity she shows. Lutjens interacts with her patients on a personal level, playing games with children and sharing communal dinners.

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