The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

More time was spent in a closed-door, executive session than in the regular July meeting of the Haxtun Hospital District Board of Directors last week. The Board met on Monday, July 27 and spent an hour conducting regular business before holding an hour-and-a-half long executive session to discuss issues relating to property.

According to minutes from the meeting, Board Member Jeff Firme moved to enter into a closed-door, executive session at 8:01 p.m. to discuss the purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer or sale of any property interest. His motion was seconded by Board Member Rod Salvador.

The Board attended the closed-door meeting until 9:34 p.m. at which time the regular meeting reconvened with no further action taken. The meeting was adjourned immediately following.

July’s meeting opened with the financial report provided by Chief Financial Officer Joleen Stroyek and included the 2019 audit report. CliftonLarsonAllen representative James Mann presented the report and discussed the analysis while also providing an overview of the hospital’s financial activities. Allen said this year’s audit was with an unmodified opinion of the financial statements and that there were no proposed adjustments as well as no deficiencies of internal controls.

Stroyek’s report included a statistics summary for both the ACU and ECU departments as well as clinic and ancillary visits. According to her information, the Ambulatory Care Unit had a total of 19 patient days, five in-patient and 14 swing bed. Those numbers are down from the budgeted number of 57 patient days equaling 67 percent under budget for the month but still coming in six percent over budget year-to-date. As for the Extended Care Unit, Stroyek said the average daily census was 20.5, a number greater than the budgeted 19.8.

Clinic visits continue to remain low, totaling 358 for the month and 2,287 for the year. According to her report, clinic visits are down 14 percent for the month and eight percent under this time last year. Ancillary visits came in at 3,723 for June and 21,942 for 2020. Those numbers are two percent under budget for the month and five percent under budget for the year.

Stroyek noted that cash balances at the end of June were 9.2 million, an increase of 7 million from Dec. 31, 2019 due to the receipt of 6.7 million in COVID relief funds. The net accounts receivable at the end of June was $823,000 a decrease of $353,000 from the end of 2019. Building and equipment at the end of June, she said, was $6.2 million, an increase of $77,000 from year end, $25,000 of which included COVID-19 purchases. Deferred revenue at the end of June was 6.7 million, all related to COVID-19 relief funds.

Chief Executive Officer Dewane Pace reviewed the Chief Nursing Officer report, prepared by Registered Nurse Lea White, with board members. White said both Dr. Ben Stephenson and Family Nurse Practitioner Jessica Bullard recently attended advanced trauma life support and other advanced training classes with med evac were attended by both nurses and providers on July 30.

HHD currently has open positions for one full-time day shift and one part-time night shift for RN/LPN positions.

White noted in her report that construction is set to begin at the Fleming clinic in September and at that time, all clinic services from that facility will pull back to the Haxtun clinic throughout the construction process.

White said the ECU currently has 18 patients. She added that ECU visitation was open briefly, however, providers determined that restriction of non-essential visitation would be better for residents’ health and safety.

In his Chief of Staff report, Dr. Stephenson said clinic numbers seem to be on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Provider schedules have seen increased patients load, we are seeing more of our chronic patients and also have been seeing more annual wellness visits,” he said.

An attempt to get the chronic care program off the ground, Stephenson said, has led to challenges with scheduling for regular patients and has also contributed to an increase in wait times for established patients. Going forward, he added, clinic staff is re-evaluating the entire process to optimize staff and provide the best service to patients.

CEO Pace reviewed HHD’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic with board members during his report towards the end of the regular July meeting. “Haxtun Hospital’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has lasted for six months and is ongoing,” Pace told the Board. “When an event such as a fire or tornado happens, the Incident Command response happens quickly, lasts for a few days and then de-escalation follows when the event is over. COVID-19 is not a typical incident and most organizations are not and were not prepared for the prolonged response necessary to deal with this pandemic. We have adapted quickly, leveraged our partnerships with the healthcare organizations in our State and are now more adequately prepared for treating, preventing and handling the situation.”

Pace said Haxtun has seen cases within the community and HHD has ramped up testing capability and purchased additional equipment and supplies. Additionally, HHD has calculated it’s 90-day burn rate for Personal Protective Equipment and is making sure the facility has the supplies needed on hand.

“We remain vigilant about protecting our patients, residents and staff,” he said. “The CDC reports over 500 deaths among healthcare providers due to COVID-19 and 139,000 total deaths across the United States. Our hope is that a successful treatment or vaccine will come soon but until that happens, we will continue to take those measures necessary to protect our staff, patients and residents from infection and possible death. This includes asking those entering our building to wear a mask, wash their hands and to not visit if they are sick.”