New year, new goals for MMH

Melissa Memorial Hospital is looking to the future and learning from the past. CEO Cathy Harshbarger announced opportunities for 2021 and reviewed 2020 at the regular meeting of the East Phillips County Hospital District Board of Directors on Tuesday, Jan. 26.

Some things MMH is looking forward to this year are increasing the rural health clinic volume, utilizing telehealth for behavioral health, implementing a new total joint program, increasing community awareness, improving the revenue cycle, realigning the charge master, increasing access to specialty doctors and making funds available for innovative projects from MMH departments.

Highlights from 2020 included using collaboration to learn how to care for an abundance of patients, increasing operating days cash on hand from a low of 28 to 121, addressing challenges of COVID-19 expenses, increasing the financial ratio from 1.9 to 3.6, increasing mammography patients by over 100, acknowledging 59 chemotherapy visits since the opening of the cancer center in the spring, bringing two new providers on board, implementing a platform for contract review, increasing Hispanic patients, hiring key people for the leadership team and other positions, and recognizing staff for the hard work they put in throughout the year.

Harshbarger also presented her annual monitoring report on Policy 1.1: “Highest Priority: People with Illness or Injury Achieve Optimum Outcomes.”

She said MMH promotes a culture of safety and beats most of the national benchmarks for all sizes of hospitals. Some measures that improved from 2019 were readmissions within 30 days (decrease from 14 to 13), readmissions within 72 hours with same/similar diagnosis (decrease from 26 to 12) and all readmissions within 72 hours (decrease from 30 to 18).

The rehabilitation program at MMH was one area in particular that showed substantial market presence in 2020 despite COVID-19 impacts. Harshbarger announced that Scott Jeppson, a physical therapist who joined the department a year ago, was recently named the rehab manager.

The report said there’s been tremendous improvement in the EMS department to ensure 24/7 coverage, increased volume and decreased response times. Ambulance runs included 483 calls for service, 124 transfers and 23 other transfers in 2020.

Last year, MMH blew away its goals for annual wellness visits and chronic care management.

While MMH had to make a tough decision to close the dental and optical clinics in 2020, Harshbarger highlighted the success of the chemotherapy center in its first year as well as the installation of a new state-of-the-art 3D mammography machine, which gave the mammography program a record year despite being closed for some time due to the pandemic.

Future priorities on the long-term strategic plan include integrating mental health care, growing the chemotherapy service line, increasing family medicine through recruitment of doctors in the community, increasing utilization of swing bed and inpatient census, integration of telehealth and remote patient monitoring, participating in the Hospital Transformation Program, and determining a general surgery model that meets community needs and is sustainable over time.

MMH following vaccine rules

“We gotta stick to the program,” said Harshbarger in her review of the COVID-19 vaccine at MMH. The hospital has been strictly following the rules put in place by the state health department. If MMH should veer from those, the state could take away the ability of MMH to administer the vaccine.

She discussed with the board both compliments and complaints about the vaccine clinics, phone inquiries and more. MMH has been working on the use of a hotline and a website to smooth out the procedure for people to sign up for vaccine clinics or be put on a waiting list.

Steric system to be replaced

Chief Financial Officer David Applewood made the board aware of a capital budget purchase. The steric system, which is used to reprocess scopes, has been constantly breaking down and is in need of replacement, which will cost less than $30,000.

In his financial report for December, Applewood said MMH was compliant in all areas.

Total revenue was $1.6 million and total expenses were $1.7 million, resulting in a net income of negative $124,000.

Total days cash on hand was 304, a decrease of eight days from the previous month, and operating days cash on hand was 121, a decrease of two days.

In looking at the 2020 year-end financial report, Applewood said things would have looked a lot worse without the COVID-19 relief funds that aided MMH during a trying year. Another positive is that MMH’s situation is not as bad as other similar hospitals, said the CFO.

He also reviewed some scenarios that could happen with funds MMH received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

Other business

In other business at the Jan. 26 meeting, the board:

— Heard a department update from Gabe Bazan, information technology manager. “When IT is efficient, MMH is efficient,” he said as he explained the ways his three-person department works to solve tech problems at the facility.

— Noted MMH received a ventilator from the national stockpile.

— Reviewed Policy 2.0 regarding general management constraint and Policy 4.2 regarding board job products.

— Heard a Quality Committee report from Jenn Cano.

— Heard a Holyoke Community Childcare Initiative update which noted the committee is looking into funding sources and reviewing bids from builders for a proposed child care center.

— Extended a declaration of local disaster emergency for another 30 days.

— Held a 30-minute executive session for personnel.