Hot Springs Health welcomes new Chief Operating Officer

At the July Hot Springs Health board meeting held in the conference room during the growth report, CEO Scott Alwin introduced Dan Hemann as the incoming Chief Operating Officer. Alwin said, “We’re in the middle of a transitionary period. We are actively searching for a pharmacy director to take over his current role. And we luckily have interviews this week to be able to hopefully fill that position. And so we’re excited to have Dan come on board in the executive team and help lead Hot Springs Health.”

Alwin also discussed some staff changes with an exciting physician assistant and a incoming physician’s assistant and a new leader of the HIM department. Additionally, Alwin introduced to the board special guests the four summer interns who were either about to finish high school or recently graduated. The interns were just finishing their final week and were there to observe the hospital board meeting.

Alwin also mentioned that they extended an offer to the Quality and Risk Manager Director of Nina Landis who is returning to Hot Springs Health and said, “We’re super excited about that. She brings a wealth of knowledge of risk and quality, and so we’re anxious to have her come on board and take her quality program to the next level.”

A couple months ago, Alwin mentioned a mini grant that they applied for regarding their education center. Alwin reported that they finalized the application in June and sent it off. In the next few weeks, they hope to receive funds close to $14,000 for equipment. After that they will put in new carpeting and finish the downstairs with a tour to follow.

The final item in the growth report was Alwin reported on their work being done with the Billings Clinic for the integrative medical records and working with the clinics. 

In the medical report, Chief of Staff Dr. Mattson Mathey said regarding the hiring of Nina Landis as the Quality and Risk director. “I think that will have a lot of positive ripple effects throughout Hot Springs Health in general and a little bit of a focus on decreasing readmission rates.” Mathey added they are focusing on the transition care management effort and combined it with the chronic care management. Additionally, Mathey mentioned the need of having more personal protective equipment back in stock. Also mentioned were issues of adverse drug reactions with patients. 

CEO Scott Alwin also gave the quality report and said that regarding the state survey in late May, early June, they submitted all the corrective action plans, which were received and accepted effective June 23. Alwin said, “the Life Safety Surveyor recommended that due to the timeliness of just the supply chain and needing to get doors in and things that required ordering supplies and sometimes construction groups to come through and make repairs, that they did recommend a time limited waiver.” The waiver gives the hospital extra time to make corrections.

Alwin added, “In relationship to our quality goals of readmission to the hospital. For the month of June, we had a fairly low number of 3.2%, which was nice to see. That’s beneath our goal of 6%. And then returned to the emergency department within 72 hours had dropped to 2.8%, which is a little bit above what our target was of 2.4%.”

In the financial report, CFO Kevin Benson highlighted cash collection, which showed revenue growth in accounts receivable. Days in accounts receivable from 61 days to 55. For the month of June they were busy and exceeded revenue by $370,000 in net. Unfortunately, however, they exceeded expenses by $295,000. This resulted with an operating surplus of $27,000. Benson also discussed contract labor and how the numbers have dropped. April was $260,000. Last month was $216,000 and June was $163,000. 

As an action item, Benson submitted the fiscal year 2023 operating and capital budget. The board voted and passed the approval of the budget. 

Benson presented a second action item and said, “the next item is a resolution we’re looking for and this is the new office of state lands and investment has been appropriated $85 million from federal government for the RPA Health and Human Services Program. These funds are for the purpose of providing grants to fund qualifying health and human services, infrastructure and capital construction. So we came across this as perhaps a means to fund part of the clinic expansion, which I think we’re estimating is going from right around $3 million. And so we’d like to put in an application for 1.5 million because we have to match those funds.” The board voted and passed approval of the resolution.

For the people pillar report, Linda Veylupek said that they currently only have three travelers which are down from seven. Veylupek also said that the new employee orientation has been doing well.