Hospital board begins bylaws review

Monday night, the Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees received a copy of the board bylaws from Board Attorney Ron Jurovich, who invited the board members to look over them and bring any questions to him. He further noted he revised the bylaws and highlighted points for board members to think about.

Among those items highlighted concerned the name of the district, whether the hospital should retain 501c3 status and when the annual meeting is held. Jurovich noted board members might notice some additional issues as they read through the bylaws, and he invited them to contact him to discuss them.

Action on the bylaws is expected at the next board meeting, April 25.

Also during the meeting, Chief Financial Officer Shelly Larson reported there has been some discussion to provide the board with a monthly graph relating such information as net income, losses and full-time employees.

Larson also reported she audited all the hospital’s patient days, and what she found was there were patients who discharged in July who had been in swing bed for a long period of time. Those days were taken into account, she said, which caused a change in the number of patient days, though overall they are on track.

Hospital CEO Margie Molitor reported Jeremiah Cannon started working at the end of February as a nurse practitioner. Cannon is under a shared contract between the hospital and Red Rock Family Practice. Molitor further explained he is a Red Rock employee, but the hospital contracts with him for services two days out of the week at the Big Horn Clinic. Cannon began seeing patients independently last week.

With regard to pulmonary rehabilitation, Molitor noted Joe White would like to set up a rehabilitation clinic in Thermopolis, which would be a revenue growth opportunity for the hospital. White is also looking at possibly doing home sleep studies. These would be an abbreviated test, but would provide people with information as to whether they need more extensive testing.

Molitor also reported regarding the balance scorecard for the fiscal year, noting it would see some changes in the future to make it easier to read, possibly breaking it down into simply what the hospital’s score is and what the goal is. Currently, the score may be a specific number, but that number fits into a determined percentile in comparison with all other hospitals across the country. This can make the scorecard challenging to interpret.

With regard to specifics on the scorecard, Molitor noted the ER is above the 75th percentile in all their scores. As for the influenza vaccine rate among employees, Molitor said they would try hard to address it, but she’s not sure if they will. There’s been some good progress, going from 68 percent of employees vaccinated to 88 percent, but that still falls below the 90 percent goal. The next fiscal year could see a mandatory influenza vaccination program.