Wheatland Memorial Healthcare
Board of Trustees’ Meeting
The Meeting of the Board of Trustees of Wheatland Memorial Healthcare was held on August 24, 2012 in the Health Education Center.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Leta Nash, Chairman
Lorraine Peterson, Vice Chairman
Terry Freeser, Secretary/Treasurer
Don Amundson
June Voldseth
Terri Donovan, CEO
MEMBERS EXCUSED:
Ken Deboer Susan Moore
OTHERS PRESENT:
Peggy Hiner, Frank Brouilette, Aubrey Miller, Lauri Cooney, Diane Jones- FNP, Mike Kent
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Chairman Nash called the meeting to order at 7:30 am and began the meeting with the reading of the Mission Statement and a welcoming to all of the guests in attendance.
CONSENT AGENDA
The consent agenda was presented. Upon motion that was duly made and seconded all items in the consent agenda were adopted as written.
REGULAR AGENDA
I. CO-WORKER UPDATE
Ray Hetherington has put together a back to school kids Health and Safety Fair that will be held from 3pm to 8pm tonight at the Youth Center. Jane Moe is setting up for the Gala that will be at the Moose tomorrow evenmg.
II. DEPARTMENT HEAD UPDATE & STAFF RECOGNITION
Ms. Hiner talked about what she has been working on in the Human Resources department. A lot of time is being spent on new employee hires and training along with workers comp, employee benefits, assisting department managers and performance reviews. Ms. Hiner hopes to get the new time clock set up soon and will start working on updating the HR policies when the new CEO is in place.
The lab staff was recognized for receiving a deficiency free CLIA survey. This is their third deficiency free survey in a row.
Today is Ms. Donovan’s last meeting. Chairman Nash and the board wished her the best of luck and thanked her for all of her positive achievements.
III. OLD BUSINESS
a. Associated Employers
The new trustee job applications that Associated Employers have been helping with were reviewed and a few wording changes along with consolidating all of the jobs into one description was suggested.
b. Board Member Recruitment and Board Characteristics
Vice Chairman Peterson and Ms. Voldseth went over the characteristics survey that was completed by all of the members to see where the existing Board strengths and weaknesses are. Public relations, health care, community service, finance, business and education were strong areas with politics and legal expertise on the weak end. All of the information collected will be a helpful resource to pass on to the new CEO.
The trustee tool kits are almost complete and will be a good resource for new members. The Trustee magazine and the HCTAM group through MHA are also helpful sources. Three different conferences are held throughout the year that have good sessions for Board members. The MHA conference is in Billing in September, Benefis holds a governance conference in Great Falls in January and there is another governance conference in Park City, Utah in June.
c. Listing of Administrator’s House
No offers have been made on the Administrator’s house as of yet. Ms. Cooney will invite realtor Bill Jones to the next Board meeting to talk more about the house.
IV. NEW BUSINESS
a. July Financials
Financials look much better this month. Cash is up and accounts receivable are down. We are still waiting on the Medicare Cost Report settlement which should be here by September. The last payment owed to St. Vincent Healthcare was paid last week. Revenue is up for the month but still lagging for the year. There are still four long term care beds available and Ms. Cooney will call everyone that is on her waiting list again before doing any outside advertising. Expenses are under budget but salaries and wages are up. Ms. Cooney and Dr. Cunningham will be working on provider schedules to make sure we aren’t using locums more than we need to. Weekly Revenue Cycle meetings have been very helpful and will continue with their top priorities being a chargemaster review, a pricing study and coding education. All of the trends for the month were positive and the Business Office continues to work hard showing pride in their continual improvements. Upon motion that was duly made and seconded the July.financials were approved as presented.
b. CEO Recruitment
The Board met with Bryan from Associated Employers about how to move forward with a new CEO. Open transparent communication without micromanagement and continuing with the goals set for Ms. Donovan are important. Associated Employers will help with the recruitment process starting with a strategic meeting with the board in September. Staff that would like to offer ideas or characteristics they are looking for in a CEO will be invited to meet with the board and Len Stanton from Associated Employers. Employee input is very important to the Board.
c. Other New Business
Ms. Cooney thanked Mr. Kent for letting the hospital use the Faith Chapel for the TNCC nurses training classes.
V. OTHER BUSINESS
a. Restricted Fund Use
Ms. Donovan asked for an additional $2,500 for a wind break that the Board had originally approved at $15,000. The funds would come out of the building fund. The Board gave their approval to proceed with the project at the higher cost.
b. Recognition of Donors
Thank you cards for donations were passed out to the members to have a personal handwritten thank you added to them.
c. Other Other Business
When Ms. Cooney attends the next Commissioners meeting she will be talking to them about having the ambulance service bill for nurses when they are needed on transports. We are paying our nurses time and a half to go on the transpotis.
The signed Code of Ethics need to be turned into Ms. Hiner as soon as possible.
d. Ql & Policy and Procedure Review Update
There have been some struggles getting some of the managers at the Policy and Procedure meetings but Ms. Cooney will start holding those that don’t attend accountable. Patsy Elings will be taking on more of the responsibilities with the Ql and Policy and Procedure meetings while Vickie Cameron stays busy helping Ms. Cooney with her new additional duties. Ms. Cooney will be researching how much involvement is required of the Board when it comes to QI and Policy and Procedure meetings.
VI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
The Board went into executive session to discuss the prospective new Board member applications at 9:23am.
The executive session ended at 9:35 When the Board returned to regular session they announced that Mike Kent would be filling the open trustee position that was vacated by Mark Taylor and Aubrey Miller would be filling the position vacated by Jeri Pavlovick. The Board went back into executive session to discuss some personnel issues at 9:40am. The executive session ended at 9:55am. No action was taken after returning to regular session.
VII. ADJOURNMENT
There being no fmiher business to be brought before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 9:56am.
