The Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH) Board of Trustees meeting was called to order at 12:01 p.m. Monday, November 29th in the Alliance Room at BBGH. The month’s agenda focused mainly on COVID and the struggle to find beds at other facilities for transfer patients and the recent audit report. The consent calendar and credentialing requests were all approved as presented.
Quality and Safety updates included the current state of COVID-19 vaccinations and treatment. Chief Quality Officer Mary Mockerman informed the board of the new COVID-19 variant, omicron, which is present in multiple countries. She also stated that in the months of September through November, approximately 89% of patients hospitalized at BBGH for COVID-19 were unvaccinated. Hospital staff continues to have significant struggles in finding beds at other facilities for our transfer patients because beds are all full. An investigation is underway to find better solutions for this issue in addition to making full use of resources locally including the Tele-Pulmonologist . If an individual is experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19, contact a primary care provider and request the monoclonal antibody treatment.
A draft of the audit report was presented by Kurt Moural, auditor and CPA from Dohman, Akerlund, & Eddy LLC. Approval is pending the completion of the full report, but Kurt stated, “We’re going to have some weird looking numbers for the next several years because of this COVID stuff. Where people’s bottom lines are going to be flip-flopped around and, in your case, your cash flow will be distorted because of the Medicare Advance payment. The rest of the cash flow had no big changes or anything significant. While cashflow and patient volumes were impacted because of COVID, the net bottom line was a pretty good improvement from where we were.”
Dr. Narjes proceeded with a staff report, sharing that while he hasn’t seen Influenza cases yet, there is an excessive amount of RSV and COVID cases recently.
Chief Nursing Officer Carolyn Jones announced the mid-year $1,500 scholarship award-winners. Recipients include: Caitlen Grimes, Keeley Mazanec, Keisha Sanchez, and Regan Lambert.
CEO Lori Mazanec concluded the meeting, mentioning BBGH is still searching for a Chief Financial Officer. The challenge has been location and several other Nebraska hospitals also looking for a CFO. Bill Luke is currently serving as Interim CFO.
New BBGH employees include: Amy Osborn and Seron Dillard. Also recognized was November Employee of the Month Shirley DeVoogd, Purchasing Assistant, and the Special Services and Maintenance teams for their organization of a Veterans Day event and donation to Quilts of Valor.
The next BBGH regular board meeting is Monday, December 20th at noon in the Alliance Room. The public is welcome to attend.
Box Butte General Hospital is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
