The main highlight of the Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH) Board of Trustees meeting held Monday, March 30 was the annual presentation of the Departmental Goals for Fiscal Year 2015-2016 by Executive Team members.
According to CEO Dan Griess, FACHE, the goals flesh out the Strategic Initiatives discussed at the February meeting with the Trustees. “We ask each Department Manager to use the SMART Goals template to develop goals that reflect and compliment the Initiatives,” he said. “There are a large number of goals presented in the packet I gave you (the trustees) and it would take too long to go through each one, so I asked each Executive Team member to highlight just a few from each of their Divisions.”
Chief Quality Officer Mary Mockerman focused on the goal of training for her team by developing a core competency curriculum that focuses on social and medical concerns that staff must be prepared to respond to independently. “Our core team is almost all nursing oriented,” she said. “Larger hospitals usually have dedicated social workers. The curriculum, developed with their input, will help the staff be better prepared to respond independently as a resource for patients, families and members of the healthcare team.” She also discussed her Division’s goal of standardizing the Emergency Code System through adoption of Plain Language to align with the Panhandle Regional Medical Response System. She said Safety Officer James Koeteman is working with seven area Critical Access hospitals and two regional medical centers in developing the system.
Chief Nursing Officer Carolyn Jones presented goal highlights for the Nursing Division. One goal for the coming year is to recruit, retain and invest in employees by devoting time, effort and resources towards developing and enhancing nursing skills. “This goal is set for almost all departments within the Nursing Division,” she said, “with a specific action plan for each department.” Departments include Nursing Education, Nursery, Obstetrics, Patient Care Unit, Intensive Care Unit, Surgery, Emergency, Infusion, Specialty Clinic and Cardio-Pulmonary Rehab. After giving examples of a few of the actions plans being developed for some of the departments, she also touched on the goals of recruitment and retainment of employees within the Division, as well as preparing to implement systems of care based on best practices that assure expected outcomes.
Chief Ancillary Officer Scott Alwin was away attending a rural health conference, so Mr. Griess presented his Division’s main goals. Mr. Griess highlighted the Greater Nebraska Medical and Surgical Services goal of hiring and successfully orienting two physicians and one mid-level provider within the Family Practice Clinic. He also highlighted the goal of coordinating the removal of the current MRI unit and CT unit to coincide with the installation of new MRI and CT scanners in the hospital’s new addition, in order to make sure there is no interruption of service by these two vital diagnostic pieces of equipment.
Chief Financial Officer Tracy Jatczak Finance Division goal highlights focused on improving that Division’s current Days Not Final Billed (DNFB) and Accounts Receivable (AR). She explained that DNFB refers to the time it takes to send bills out after discharging the patient. Due to the migration to the new Centriq system and the need for staff to learn its use, the DNFB has gone up to eleven days. The goal is to reduce the numbers of days to seven prior to the implementation of ICD-10 in October of 2015. ICD-10 is the new coding system proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The new system bumps the number of codes from the current system of around 16,000 to approximately 80,000. “DNFB will undoubtedly go up when ICD-10 comes on line, so we want to get that number of days down as low as possible prior to its implementation,” she said.
Chief Operations Officer Lori Mazanec highlighted some of the goals for her Operations Division, including developing a plan for a smooth and successful IT transition to the new addition. She said a large variety of IT issues have to be coordinated for that goal to be successful. She also discussed the goal of updating Human Resource policies and procedures with the assistance of a consulting firm and to recruit a Human Resources manager by December 2015.
All five executives also discussed goals addressing issues each Division will have when making the move to the new addition, currently scheduled to occur in October of 2015. Each division has unique challenges that must be met so that the move is the least disruption as possible, while maintaining high safety and quality of care for patients.
The board conducted the following business as well.
The Trustees recognized Mary Ohrtman for being chosen the March Employee of the Month, as well as Claudia Olafson gaining Registered Health Information Technician certification. The board also welcomed new employees Nathan Fritzler, IT Help Desk; Marcella Thomas, Customer Service Representative; Kailee Leisy, Dialysis Manager; Amy Brown, Cook; Brittany King, RN; Justin Near, Phlebotomist for GNMSS; and Chelsea Melendez, RN.
After unanimously approving the consent calendar, Ms. Mockerman gave her monthly Quality Management and Safety report, focusing on data obtained for the Core Measures Composite Report for 2014. Core Measures are Surgical, Pneumonia, Congestive Heart Failure, Outpatient and Immunization measurements. She gave a brief explanation of data gathered throughout the year for each core measurement, as well as steps to improve each measure.
Chief of Staff Timothy Narjes, MD, gave a brief report on protocols and credentialing recommendations the Medical Executive Committee previously discussed. He also reported that the number of RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) cases that affected many of the area’s children have gone down throughout the month.
While no Governance/Strategy focus was presented by Mr. Griess, he did focus on his recent trip to a Government Institute workshop in La Vista, NE that produced information the Trustees could use. He said copies of the workshop packet would be provided to each Trustee to peruse. He urged the Trustees to contact him on any issues they may want to discuss for future Governance/Strategy topics.
Mr. Griess gave an update on the new addition’s progress, saying most of the brick work is now completed, with inside construction and finishing progressing on track for the October 2015 move. He said landscaping will soon begin to prepare for driveway and parking lot cement work. Ground work for the installation of two new chillers and another emergency generator located north of the current hospital is progressing as well. “From what I understand, there are around 120 construction workers on site each day,” he commented.
Mr. Griess urged the Trustees to attend 19th Annual Western Regional Trustee Symposium June 10-12 in Sun Valley, ID. Trustee Larry Ring also urged Trustees to attend, saying the Symposium sessions he has attended over the years have all been informative and interesting.
After unanimously approving all credentialing requests, the board adjourned at 8:05 pm. The next meeting will be held Monday, April 27 at 7:00pm in the hospital’s Alliance Room. As always, the public is invited to attend.