By Mary Alice Murphy

The traditional first comment of the Gila Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees meeting is a safety moment.

At the special meeting on Dec. 19, 2018, held in lieu of a regular meeting in December, as the regular session would fall between Christmas and New Year's Day, Chief Executive Officer Taffy Arias said the hospital is seeing about 13 or 14 immigrants at a time come into the Emergency Room accompanied by Border Patrol personnel.

"We have been alerted that about 250 have crossed the border and Border Patrol is sorting them out," Arias said. "We treat them the same way as we treat any patient. We welcome them. The agents are professional, and the patients have been very nice. Patients have the same rights as any patient in the hospital. When they are detained, there is an extra layer of security."

She said the patients are from Guatemala and Honduras. "I went in speaking Spanish, which surprised them."

Mike Morones, GRMC Board chairman, said the national press has been covering the situation. "Our border is not as heavily used, as they have a heavier burden of crossing desert to get to our border. They are facing harsher conditions."

Morones said the purpose of the special meeting was to get some contracts signed before the end of the calendar year.

Before the reports, the trustees went into a short executive session.

Back in regular session, Chief Financial Officer Richard Stokes said the network infrastructure in the hospital is at end of life and is out of capacity. "We have to add five servers to comply with redundancy requirements. The cost to upgrade the infrastructure comes in at about a quarter of a million dollars.

"We need to replace it," Stokes said. "We had a discussion on whether we could maintain the current server or move to the next generation of infrastructure. My recommendation is to use the opportunity to get external financing to meet the infrastructure and clinical needs up to $1.25 million, with $766,000 or the IT portion. We will determine the clinical needs before the end of January."

Trustee Jeannie Miller said what it means for the Finance Committee is the hospital will be authorizing a lease payment over the next five years.

"One of the things I wanted to do is match the equipment life to the term of the lease," Stokes said. "We got maintenance agreements for hardware and software for five years built into the lease payment. If we get equipment that has three-year or seven-year life spans, we will try to fit the lease payments as well."

Morones noted that Stokes said the expenditure was budget neutral. "Does this mean that we are not spending any more than we were spending on maintaining the equipment and software?"

"That's right," Stokes replied, "and I'm hoping there will be savings and we will be able to calculate the annual cash flow savings."

He said information technology also has a new director, as Adam Baca, who came to the hospital from Freeport-McMoRan has assumed the day-to-day functions. Ken Stone has taken the position of chief information security officer."

Miller said that Baca has experience with the system in use at the hospital.

"Our network lately has been attacked more than normal," Stokes said. "Presbyterian has been hacked and tons of hospital hackings have happened in Texas. Ken runs the background tools to prevent penetrations."

Stokes said the hospital has $483,000 in needs. "We will prioritize. We didn't want to burn internal capital to get these things done."

The item was approved by the board members.

Board Vice Chairman Dr. Victor Nwachuku read out the details of each contract or agreement to be approved.

Each was approved as it was read.

Innova, the provider of services in the Emergency Department was given a six-month extension, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2019. Arias said: "We need time to delve into the contract to make it current and make sure it is meeting our needs at present."

Dr. Colicia Meyerowitz has been named vice chairwoman of the Medical Executive Committee and vice chief of staff, as well as serving on the Credentials Committee.

The hospital Chief of Staff will be Dr. Brian Robinson, who will serve through Dec. 31, 2022.

Dr. Norman Ratliff will serve as secretary-treasurer of the medical staff.

Dr. Tsering Sherpa and Dr. Ratliff will serve on the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee.

Dr. Gregory Iwassa will serve on the Bylaws Committee, as will Drs. Meyerowitz, Hernandez and Thomas.

Drs. Ronald Dalton and Donna Kiehne will serve on the Credentials Committee.

Dr. Gregory Koury and Dr. Nathan Williams will serve on the Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation Committee.

Nwachuku noted that the doctors get paid only when they meet and attend the meetings.

Carol Simpson will serve as the adult geriatric nurse practitioner at the Bayard Clinic, with a contract for three years.

The meeting adjourned.