[Editor's Note: This part 2 of a potential multi-part series of articles. It begins to address leadership reports.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

At the May 26, 2022 Gila Regional Medical Center governing board members heard reports from the CEO, CNO, CFO, chief of staff, quality and HealthTechS3 management.

Interim Chief Executive Officer Marion A. "Tony" Thompson presented the first verbal report. He said that as soon as equipment the hospital has ordered for the clinical side of the Billy Casper Wellness Center is received and installed, the masking requirement will be amended. However, the equipment is 12 weeks out. "After the equipment is installed, the masking requirement on the gym side will be dropped, because it will be in compliance with CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid). If the equipment would arrive early, we will install as soon as possible and we will report."

Governing Board member Billy Billings asked about the classes that begin after the 5 p.m. closing time at the treatment side and if the masking policy could be dropped.

Chief Nursing Officer Kelly Rodriguez said there had been back and forth discussion on that issue, because before hours of 8 a.m. people might not need to wear masks and it might be confusing to them, if they come back at 1 p.m. and have to wear masks. "For continuity and for the protection of our staff, we have to enforce the mask policy."

Thompson, in addition it would be a signage problem, whereas after the equipment is installed, there will be a clean break between the gym side and the clinical side.

Rodriguez gave her report. "I wanted to start out talking about our Nurses Week activities. They went well, and we appreciate your participation with us. I also wanted to thank you for the proclamation for Nurses Month. I want to highlight that our ER director Heather Morrison-Been has joined us. She has been with us for about three weeks now. She is very engaged and jumping in and really taking the reins of the Emergency Department. We have a lot of projects we are working on in the department as a post-Covid recovery, building Covid into your daily life. Additionally, on our women's center we are in the final planning stages, looking at color swatches and things like that. Our registered nurses in the department are part of that. You recently heard that we have received approval for our anesthesia machine. It is a critical piece of equipment to keep our surgery department running. On our USDA funding, we are going through the approval process on six more pieces of equipment. When we have approval, we will bring those capital requests to you. For the capital outlay we received this year, we are exploring some nurse call systems, and also the 3-D mammography, all of which will be improvements to our patients. We are working on something in the imaging department that will benefit other departments. It is an imaging sharing for departments for electronic records. We explored this, years ago, but took no action. Now there is a company that is contracted with most of the hospitals in El Paso, and we do ship images there. It will help with consults, as well as transfer information to have more continuity of care to the next level of care. We have about 28 process improvement projects going on right now throughout the clinical department with about 11 directors, so there's a lot of work going on. One big one is on sepsis. We continue to talk about sepsis and how important it is to prevent it and manage it, so that patients feel safe in the facility. If they are septic, they need to know that we will attack it immediately. So, we are participating in the New Mexico Hospital Association discovery tool. We have already started to dive into our policy and our treatment protocols to streamline the process to make it easier for physicians and our nursing staff to follow."

She said they had also participated with the NMHA on a discovery tool on pressure injuries, such as ulcers. "We have a very low rate, but, of course, we want to eliminate those completely. The clinical directors will start patient rounding again. Prior to Covid, they were rounding every morning. We will start that again on June 6. On May 15, our hospital visitation policy changed. Our visitation hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. We are still a health care facility, so we must wear a mask when entering the facility. We are requesting that our minor children under 18 not visit the facility. If someone needs a 24-hour care giver that would require a request for approval."

Governing Board Chair Alicia Edwards asked what the process would be if a family member or care giver wanted to do that. "Who would their initial contact at the hospital be?"

Rodriguez said they need to ask the patient's primary nurse and will escalate it to the house nurse on duty, who will give approval if the patient requires the help.

"To touch base on our Beginning Years program, they have 120 clients, so they are doing some adjustments to summer-type activities that allow them to have movie passes or pool passes," Rodriguez said. "Jenny Ferrante and her staff are doing amazing things to help their clients."

She addressed recruitment efforts, "we just passed physical therapy recruitment last week at UTEP (University of Texas-El Paso) and hopefully we will see the fruits of that. We have had three graduate applications and another interview, so hopefully we will be able to grab them. As I do monthly, I want to acknowledge one of our staff members. Rene Medina, one of our physical therapists at rehab. He has been with us about five years. He does an amazing job assessing and helping our patients."

Governing Board Member Chris Ponce asked where the labor and delivery renovation is at this point.

Rodriguez said the next meeting is next week, and then the process will move forward.

Governing Board Member Harry Browne said they had discouraged Rodriguez from bringing the display board to the meeting.

"I'm anxious to see it complete," Ponce said. "But whatever you decide is fine with me.

Edwards said the display board gave some ideas of what it would look like.

Rodriguez said right now, most babies are getting their first bath in a sink. "What will happen in these rooms is there will be a baby bath sink."

Browne asked about the graduate nurses. Rodriguez said these are not Western New Mexico University graduates but are applicants from other colleges they have reached out to. "We weren't sure what kind of response we would get but getting our information out about the internship we have. Some students in Las Cruces didn't know where Silver City was."

Browne asked about Covid, the rise in local cases and how it has impacted the hospital.

Rodriguez said they still get people with Covid-like symptoms, and they are tested. "We have had no positive cases admitted to the hospital until one this week (last week in May). We had gone almost two months without a positive Covid admission. We don't want to panic. We just will keep watch."

Browne encouraged being up front, especially with local media, so no one has to ask.

The next item on the agenda was the Chief Financial Officer report. Interim CFO Paul Rogers gave the presentation.

"I am reporting the operations for the month of April," Rogers said. "Except for a one time write off of a TAP receivable in the amount of $2,600,000, we would have had a net surplus of $289,000, but the normalizer put us at a loss of ($2,311,000). We had a receivable on the books in 2021, that was paid for through Medicare. So, this one is no longer on the books. Not a good month overall. However, I will remind you on a year-to-date basis, we are sitting with the $5 million overall surplus. During the month we had a slight drop in discharges and outpatient visits, but a robust increase in surgeries and ER visits. For April 2022, you see the loss in net patient revenue of $2.073 million and the $2.311 million loss at the bottom, compared to the prior year with a net surplus of $1.8 million. Year-to-date, the total net surplus is $5.072 million on a budget of $821,000, and a prior year surplus of $200,000. We continue to see improvements in all key measures of liquidity. Net accounts receivable days continue to drop; days cash on hand increased by one day; current ratio of our ability to pay expenses continues to improve; and our average payment period continues to drop, meaning we are able to pay our bills faster."

He showed the table of capital expenditures of the 10 months ending April 30, 2022, "I'm proud to say we have been able to acquire more than $1 million in capital improvements throughout this year," Rogers concluded.

No one had questions.

The next article will begin with the chief of staff report.

For the first part of the meeting, please visit this page: https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/72487-grmc-held-governing-meeting-may-26-2022-part-1