Hot Springs Health board updated on CHNA report

At the December Hot Springs Health board meeting, Dr. Mattson Mathey gave the medical staff report and said they passed a couple of policies and updated their circumcision policy. They also discussed their increase in numbers for OB and to make sure they have enough specialty nurses available to absorb and safely care for their increased numbers. Mathey said they have potentially 16 deliveries for January.

During the CEO report, Scott Alwin detailed his efforts in physician recruitment. He also said that the Community Health Needs Assessment report is ready and will be presented by Julie Hynes over Zoom. 

Regarding growth, Alwin said that they are looking at a tentative date of April 2023 to start doing in-house sleep studies with Western State Medicine.

Also, Dr. Carrie Merrill, an OB-GYN specialist out of Casper, is in negotiations to bring her to the specialty clinic in Thermopolis potentially from February to March. Alwin also said that regarding Dr. Brian LaGraca, they are re-modifying an agreement with him to continue their services. Alwin said he will start his service in January. Alwin also reported that they have seen an increase in clinic visits as well as the finances with net operations. 

In the financial report, CFO Kevin Benson said that for the past two to three months in a row, they have seen a decrease in their days of accounts receivable. Benson said they have “a stronger effort to work in all areas of the revenue cycles. However, the reduction I think is primarily due to we’re finally fully staffed, and that includes both the billing department and the medical atrium coding departments.” They went from 64 days in accounts receivable to 60.5. Benson added that this also means that their cash balances go up.

In the marketing report, John Gibbel said they recently had their Christmas Tree Festival with Gary Nash as their auctioneer again. They had about 30 items to sell and they made about $16,000 at the event this year. The event was sponsored by Hot Springs Health and Pinnacle Bank. 

Gibbel also reported about their efforts in Shoshoni at the school with nurse Donna Post. Hot Springs Health’s Beth Keller DMP, FMP, and Bill Mitchell, PA-C, are working with Post to provide services. Post specifically asked for sleep studies that the teachers might be interested in. Regarding the students, they will discuss in their health classes about babies, STDs, vaping, and alcohol use. 

CEO Scott Alwin introduced to the board Health Tech’s Julie Hynes, who gave the Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) report over Zoom. According to Hynes, the IRS has regulations that stem from the need to perform a CHNA report to determine the health needs of a community and to involve the stakeholders of that community. 

On November 21, there was a roundtable meeting held to help stakeholders prioritize the needs of the community. Hynes reported that only 20% of those who were invited attended this meeting.

During the prioritization meeting, the participants sought to identify the significant health needs using a series of criteria. They included the magnitude or scale of the problem, the severity of the problem, health disparities, community assets, and the ability to leverage.

The responses were grouped together by like topics and resulted in the prioritized health needs, which were Mental Health/Substance Abuse/Suicide; Chronic Disease/Prevention Medicine & Education; and Access.

Even though Hot Springs Health services subjects who live outside Hot Springs County, the CHNA report sought to focus solely on residents of the county. 

The board voted and passed the approval to accept the CHNA report. They have 4.5 months to create an implementation plan. It was also noted that Hot Springs Health does not have  to specifically address the components of the CHNA report, as they are not the only stakeholder involved in the plan. Alwin added, “There are other players to bring to the table.”