HS Health board updated on items

At the April Hot Springs Health board meeting, Chief Clinical Officer Scott Alwin gave the quality report and said they have received three applications for the hospital’s summer internship program. Currently, there are two open spots. However, there was a discussion about opening a third spot depending upon if all three students meet the criteria for the positions. The applications will be reviewed and interviews will be held in May. 

Alwin also reported that they are modifying processes regarding quality policy and they want to focus on one to two goals that encompass the entire organization. Alwin added that they want to decrease silos within the organization and to improve interdepartmental relationships. According to Alwin, these changes will be in line with their strategic plan.

Regarding additional quality matters, Alwin said that they want to incorporate or transition to digital surveys in addition to traditional paper surveys. The digital surveys would cost less money and increase the likelihood of a patient responding to the survey. It will also increase the speed in response time. They would be sent out 24 to 48 hours after the health care service. 

For the financial report, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Benson said, “the cash on hand remained pretty much unchanged from the prior month. We had hoped to see some improvement due to the release of Medicaid claims that were getting hung up in the state software upgrade. I don’t know that we saw as much of that as we thought we would, but we do continue. We’re working on the revenue cycle process. We do have staff turnover in the Health Information Department. And in our coding, there’s a bottleneck in the coding session there and I don’t expect it to get worse, but it will take time for it to get better to replace staff. And even if we have to outsource it to clear all that backlog and get everything out of the door and build.”

The board also had an action item to add Benson’s signature to the cards at Central Bank and Trust and Pinnacle Bank. Benson reported that their account had been breached with fictitious checks that came in two consecutive days and that they closed those accounts. They need to replace the signatures. The board voted and approved the passage of the action item. 

In the people report, HR Director Linda Veylupek said that at the community career fair there were 12 businesses represented, but only two candidates arrived and showed interest. Veylupek said that staffing in health care faces a similar challenge and said, “I thought this really does sort of feel like what it’s like right now, recruiting we’re all competing for those same two people.”

During the medical staff report, Dr. Hallie Bischoff said, “things are going well… We do have some new people who are picking up speed and getting things learned and doing better, especially in the clinic and in our front office staff. We have changed hands a lot here. We have new people and overall, they’re doing well. We’re getting quite a few new patients.”

Chief Clinical Officer Scott Alwin gave the growth report as CEO Margie Molitor was out of town on business travel. Alwin said they will offer CNA classes from May 23 until June 2. There will also be two scholarships available to help students in need.

Alwin added, “Last week, we did have a great meeting with the Billings Clinic with some conversations around the integrated medical record. Also, the clinic transitioned to Cerner will be coming later this year. We’re hoping that our integrated record within the hospital will be done around October. And then the clinic transition from the current system over to Cerner will happen in November. We also are going to be launching what’s called a fetal link. That is the ability for fetal monitoring to go directly into the medical record.”

Regarding their inpatient scores, Alwin reported they have a high inpatient score of 85.7 in the 94th percentile for those definitely recommending the organization. Alwin added, “our outpatient scores are sitting at 75.2 and those are down in the fifth percentile. So we have some work to do there.”

Alwin continued and said, “We’d really like to improve the sample size for our surveys. And in the clinic, we are sitting at 80.54, definitely recommending and just a little bit lower than the goal of 84.”