Hospital board receives several updates

At the December Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital board meeting, CEO Margie Molitor talked about the fact that they have three qualified surgeons for orthopedic care. She said that the staff met Dr. Caldwell on his second trip to the area. He was also in surgery and was seeing patients. Dr. Francisco from Lander is in Thermopolis on certain days, and Dr. Rice is at Gottsche for providing care. 

Regarding construction Molitor said that the Covid bill that recently passed gave an extension on their SLIB coronavirus funds. Everything had to be completed by December 15 and in use by December 30. The extension gives them some breathing room so “We are not rushed and doing things well. I expend all of our projects to be done by the end of January.” Molitor added that they are working on getting all of their invoices turned in to get the funding complete. 

Molitor reported on the Moderna vaccine would arrive in Hot Springs County by Christmas Eve. They will start vaccinating their employees on Monday, December 28. Hot Springs County is getting 200 doses and 50 will go to Public Health for EMS and law enforcement, 150 to the hospital.  

For the Rural Training Track interviews, Molitor said they interviewed 13 fourth-year medical students. The program will start in Casper in July 2021. She said, “They are really qualified people. I’m impressed with all of them. I think it’s going to be an extremely difficult decision of how we rank them. That will take place in March.” The student will also rank their residence choices and they will hopefully make their match in April. 

In the Hospital Foundation report, Dan Powell said that they have approved their strategic plan, which was formed initially last summer and that approved their annual budget. In their Together We’re Better program, they increased their membership to 28 employee partners. The foundation’s goal is to have 50% participation. Members receive stickers for their ID badges to indicate their enrollment. They also receive tumblers that have the foundation logo on them. For their fundraising from golf tournaments, they earmarked $8,500 to help purchase a 3D digital mammography machine. 

Powell also reported they filed for a grant application with the Wyoming Breast Cancer initiative and were awarded it, but the value currently isn’t known. Power said that overall in the past year they raised $28,000. “It’s a pretty good effort for our first year, but we hope to do better next year.” The foundation also received $500 from the Kiwanis Club as a donation which will be added to their scholarship fund. An additional $54,000 was given to the foundation for end-of-life care from the Wyoming Hospice Foundation, which is wrapping up their program. 

There are a couple of new projects the foundation is working on. They also have a project for providing nursing pillows to new mothers. This will go along with the hospital’s auxiliary existing project of gift bags they give. Powell said the nursing pillows are “very, very helpful and very functional to a new mom and baby but they tend to be expensive”. They have grant applications turned in to help raise funds for that project. One is with the Walmart Foundation for $2,000 and another submitted to the Wyoming Community Foundation for $1,500. They aim to provide 50 pillows along with washable covers for a period of six months. 

In the medical staff report, Dr. Hallie Bischoff said they met and discussed protocols to implement at the ER for patients with burns. The nurses will be able to help with care quickly, and the protocols can also help with referrals. They also worked on the insulin drip protocols for diabetic patients that can help as a guide for the nurses.

Dr. Bischoff also said they went over rapid testing for Covid in their clinics. She said, “That is going well.” They are still sending some test samples off to the state, however. They are also getting their Bio-Fire machine, which can test multiple viruses which will be up and running shortly. They also discuss vaccinations and who will be vaccinated and how and where that is going to happen. Dr. Bischoff said that the Shoshoni clinic will be up and running soon. She said, “It’s exciting that we will be able to take care of all those people.” 

In the quality report, Nina Landis said in their medication reconciliation they are at 77% still for the year to date, which is a goal, but they are still trying to get that score higher.

Landis also said patients are getting back into the swing of things and not getting as confused where things are located in the hospital. They worked on signage to clearly communicate locations. 

In the service pillar report, John Gibbel said that the mask ads seem to be pretty popular and have gone well and we’ve got a lot of feedback on them. Gibbel also said he is working on signage for the Shoshoni clinic and that their website is complete at this point, but there will be more coming with the transparency elements from financial manager Shelly Larson. The new website is hotspringshealth.com. 

In the financial pillar report, Shelly Larson said their accounts receivables increased five days from 46 to 49 due to increases in their clinic accounts receivables. Their cash on hand decreased by three days. Some of this was due to purchasing equipment under the Covid CARE Act grant fund as well as supplies. Larson said, “We held our own even though things were less than optimal in terms of finances.” 

In the people pillar report, Linda Veylupek brought up that staff has new ice traction devices to use. This would be a new policy that would increase safety for the staff to decrease falls. The board voted and passed this new policy. 

In old business, the board voted to approve a change order for their roof on a bid from Schroeder Construction. This will address some materials that were thicker than anticipated and also the removal of asbestos materials. There were also two areas in the roof that were not previously identified. The total amount is $39,900. They will turn in their roof issue into their insurance.