LCHA approves EOMC improvements

By DAVID SEELEY

PDN Editor

The LeFlore County Hospital Authority met last Tuesday for its regularly scheduled governing board meeting. During the meeting, the Authority approved new flooring for the cafeteria as well as new health information services (HIS) servers due to the current servers being at end of life. EOMC Chief Financial Officer Brandon Bullard said removing the cafeteria carpet and replacing it with hardwood flooring will cost $22,393. EOMC Chief Operations Officer Logan Hayes told the board the new servers, which have to come from CPSI, will come at a cost of $118,825.

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In his hospital operations report, EOMC Chief Executive Officer Bob Carter told the board that United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Director Kenneth Corn has notified him that EOMC will receive a $307,800 USDA grant to be used to help the remodeling efforts in the emergency department. Carter introduced Kristie Waselkow, RN as the new case manager.  Staff at the EOMC clinics have done 477 sports physicals and 15 bus driver physicals — and they were doing more of the same last Tuesday in Talihina.

Carter said Southwestern Oklahoma State University has started preparing bid packets for the school tele-medicine equipment, but he said it likely will be after the 2022-23 school year begins before the full implementation of the tele-medicine program in the LeFlore County schools happens.

Carter used this time as an opportunity to thank the EOMC Recruitment and Retention Team chaired by Misty Mead for hosting the reception for the graduating nursing students from Kiamichi Tech, Carl Albert State College and Eastern Oklahoma State College. He said the event was well received by all the nurses and that EOMC got several applications from those who attended.

Carter said that EOMC had its quarterly meeting on May 12 with Choctaw Nation Indian Health Services in an effort to increase business for our nuclear medicine program. Carter reported that the State Department of Health approved the architect drawings for the outpatient physical therapy (PT) renovations. He said that as soon as the outpatient registration and radiology waiting room areas are completed, work on the PT renovations will begin. Carter said he is hopeful a ribbon-cutting ceremony could take place as soon as mid-summer to open the outpatient registration department.

Carter said the recently approved cardiac monitoring system equipment was installed May 16, while the new electrocardiogram (EKG) units recently arrived and in-service education with staff is being done with at this time.

Carter reported that EOMC will begin a new productivity system June 5 in which it will help the hospital better determine the number of worked hours each department should need on a regular basis.

During Carter’s report, Northeast Health Systems CEO Brian Woodliff gave the board a legislative update about some of the bills on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City that have ties to EOMC and rural hospitals across the state. Woodliff said Senate Bill 163, that dealt with raising the competitive bid limits to $250,000, passed the Oklahoma State Senate after it passed the State House of Representatives, and will become effective Nov. 1.

Woodliff mentioned the newly-formed two-bill package that stemmed from the original Managed Medicaid Plan, SB 1337 and SB 1396. He said that if Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed SB 1337, SB 1396 would not be implemented, and vice versa, because both bills go hand in hand.

In his quality assurance and performance improvement (QAPI) report, Carter told the board that all the QAPI subcommittees continue to work together with managers to “fine tune their indicators as well as having corrective-action plans.”

In his risk management report, Carter told the board that 24 patients left the emergency room without being seen and there were seven walk-in clinic patients who were referred to the ER for a higher level of care, three code blues and one code stroke.

Carter also mentioned that EOMC Clinics Director Melanie Ward has implemented a new patient satisfaction survey in all of EOMC’s clinics.

“We’ve been getting really good results with that, and we’ve only had one negative comment,” Carter said. 

In his Press Ganey report, Carter said that the ER satisfaction rate is 61 percent, outpatient is 65 percent and inpatient is 76 percent.

In her Infection Prevention Committee report, EOMC Infection Preventionist Kelsey McGee, R.N., told the board that in March there were 205 COVID swabs with two positive results. The positive results came after a five-week timeframe with no positive results reported.

In her improving organizational performance (IOP) report, Dr. Beth Hites told the board there were 39 impatient discharges, 30 observation discharges, 988 ER discharges and 15 swing bed discharges for a total of 1,072 discharges for March. The board approved the initial appointment of Monica Martin, M.D. for tele-hospitalist services and the non-provisional appointment of Alainna Simpson, D.O. for emergency medicine services up through April 30.

Bullard gave the board his March statistics, in which he said there were 38 acute admissions, 14 swing bed admissions, 23 observation admissions and 2,731 clinic visits.

In the March financial report, Bullard said gross patient revenue was $3.75 million, net patient revenue was $1.767 million and net operating revenue of $1.8 million — which included $700,000 of COVID revenue due to hazard pay that has been being paid to EOMC staff. While there was an operating loss for March of $16,445, EOMC has a year-to-date income of $2.1 million. EOMC has $7.5 million of cash assets, around $3 million in net patient receivable and total current assets of $13.1 million.

After an approximately 15-minute executive session in which LCHA President Mike Andrews said the board did not make any motions or take any action, the board approved an updated EOMC organizational chart and multiple policy changes for several departments.

In the first meeting of last Tuesday afternoon’s doubleheader of meetings, Bullard told the LeFlore County Sales Tax Supported Hospital Authority that there was $182,381 of sales tax proceeds for April, a $94,000 transfer was made to EOMC, there was a $90,699 bond payment made and an ending cash balance for April of $4,783.