The Kiowa County Hospital District and County Board met in regular session on May 30, 2017 at 6:37 p.m. at the Bransgrove Building Meeting Room.

District Board members present were: Robert Woods, Mary Eikner, Priscilla Waggoner, Sylvia Shields and Cathryn Anderson.

County Board members present were: Craig Kerfoot, Kim Harris, John Negley and Dennis Pearson.  Absent: Lori Shalberg.

Others present: Shannon Dixon, Char Korrell, Gloria Trosper, Dreama Buck, Colette Martin and Wendy McDowell.

The meeting was called to order by Waggoner, Chairman of the Board. COUNTY VOTING MEMBERS:  Harris, Kerfoot and Negley

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: A motion was made to approve the April 25 minutes by Woods and Anderson seconded it.  All aye.

AGENDA: Add Sprinkler Inspection and Clinic Electrical bids to CT AC.  A motion was made by Anderson to approve the Agenda as amended and it was seconded by Woods. All aye.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

FINANCE COMMITTEE: The April financials were reviewed. The ECU Medicaid is still not working in the Portal. The final payment for the CT project has been made. The check register was reviewed.

GRANT COMMITTEE: The final report has been sent to DOLA and El Pomar. The final report for Caring for Colorado is due in the next few weeks.

DEPARTMENT REPORTS: Nursing reviewed their responsibilities and job duties with the Board.  They each have their own responsibilities, but they also cover shifts when needed.

CREDENTIALING

Dr. Allison Edwards will be working for us in June. She has been approved for privileges by Med Staff. Kerfoot made a motion to approve privileges for Dr. Allison Edwards and Woods seconded it.  All aye.

POLICIES & PROCEDURES

We have policies for ECU Swingbed for review this month. A motion was made by Anderson to approve policies presented and Harris seconded it.  All aye.

OLD BUSINESS

PROVIDER RECRUITMENT: We have placed provider recruitment with Arthur Marshall on hold until we can decide exactly what we are needing. We have one year to reactivate the search with them.  We will decide what we need and then resume the search.

LAB MACHINE:  We reviewed the lab machine purchase versus leasing and overall with the service contract included, it will be cheaper to purchase the machine. We will use some of the Health Fair proceeds to purchase this machine.

NEW BUSINESS

ECU & HOSPITAL REPORT: We currently have 16 residents in the ECU. The Hospital has been busy with swing bed patients. We have no hospital acquired infections. We reviewed the HCAHPS for February and there were none for March.

PHARMACY: We are waiting on another proposal for our Pharmacy consultant. Once this is received, we will bring them to the Board for review. All responsibilities will be listed in the contract.

EVALS & WAGES: Last year we approved the overall increase for the minimum wage increase. We normally do a three percent raise to eligible employees. The minimum wage increase does not allow higher paid employees to receive this three percent increase. To allow the higher paid employees to receive a full three percent if eligible, would increase salaries an additional $750 per month. Discussion followed. A motion was made by Negley to approve the extra increase for the higher paid employees and Kerfoot seconded it. All aye. Abstained: Woods, Harris, Shields

BID REPAIRS: We need an AC Equipment Phase Protection to regulate the AC in the CT building.  This item is $1,988.00

The CT room fire alarm is under warranty with Western States and this is a bid to perform the inspection this year.  The cost is $1,130.00 from Western States.

The Clinic needs another circuit in the front office to compensate for all of our electrical equipment.  The cost is $1,413.97 from Kent Electric.

A motion was made by Woods to approve the purchase of the AC Phase Protection, the inspection from Western States and the electrical work by Kent Electric in the Clinic and Shields seconded it.  All aye.  Kerfoot abstained.

NSIDE: Colette Martin representing NSIDE was present for the board meeting to give an update on her visits to the facility.  She has been here twice.  She had a fantastic talk with Kay in HR.  The personnel files are in great shape.  Gloria did a fantastic job of educating her on how the lab works. There were some stained ceiling tiles that needed to be replaced and they were replaced within a day.  Wendy, Shannon and Char are starting to work together as a team and they will meet with Colette weekly. Colette asked the Board what type of education do they want. She thought one day would work and maybe include finances, quality assurance and laws. What is your role as a board member and as a special district.  The team and Colette will work on an agenda for this training. It was decided that we will plan for some time in August. Maybe we could improve our own board packet for new board members.  Colette wanted to let the Board know that her first time here, she was greeted in a friendly manner by everyone and that they were all helpful. That is quite remarkable for a stranger to come in and be treated so well. You should be very proud of your employees.

CEO APPLICATIONS: We have six applications for the CEO position. The team and NSIDE will start going through them to review and bring to the Board with the information.

Priscilla asked if we should maybe wait to hire a CEO until we are more stable as a Board. Maybe we should be more educated on how things are done and how do we hire a CEO without knowing what we want. The Board needs to decide what to do about hiring a CEO and what to tell the employees. We need to inform the employees what our plans are so they are not wondering what we are doing. We also need to let the applicants know that we are waiting to hire someone. Char will continue to be our Interim CEO until the Board is prepared to hire a new CEO. We will return to the CEO search in six months. We will let the employees know at the Employee Meeting this month.

OTHER

SMOKING: Negley stated that he had a few complaints from the community about a resident smoking at the front door and employees smoking on the smoke free campus.

McDowell stated that she would talk to the resident about smoking away from the front door. We do have to provide a place for residents to smoke. Everyone else should be leaving our property to smoke.  We will remind the employees.

Governor Hickenlooper signed Senate Bill 267 which preserves the Hospital Provider Fee Program among many other items that will help Rural Colorado.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:51 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kiowa County Hospital District Board Sylvia Shields, Secretary-Treasurer