During recognitions, GRMC Board Chair Dr. Fred Fox, right, presents certificate honoring Chief Nursing Officer Ron Green , at left, for his five years of service in GRMC administration.

Photo and article by Mary Alice Murphy

At the Gila Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees meeting on May 22, 2024, Board Chair Dr. Fred Fox read off the recognitions. These honored included Antonio Estrada for five (17 total) years of service in surgery; Ronald Green for five years of service in administration, with 19 years total since 1995 at Gila Regional; James Rosser, MD, for five years of service in surgical services; and Jasmine Para for 10 years of service in nursing.

With no public input, Fox brought the consent agenda to a vote.

Board Member Pat McIntire said if she is approving the consent agenda, she has a concern. "Am I agreeing to all of these things on the consent agenda? If so, one of my concerns is I am obligated to be transparent to my public in terms of what we agree to. I would like to see a brief descriptions of each item on the consent agenda. We have the Silver City Daily Press and the Grant County Beat here, and it behooves us to be very transparent."

Member Seth Traeger said he agreed, but would like it made clear what is relevant just to the hospital, and what should be shared to the public.

Fox said in some of the contracts it should not refer to personnel or amounts of salary, for instance. "Bob (Chief Executive Officer Robert Whitaker) sends out a brief description of these to us, but some is too detailed with personnel and such for the public."

McIntire said: "Then he could add a briefer description to the agenda."

Whitaker agreed to do that.

Vice Chair Betty Vega moved to approve the consent agenda with a note to have more information on future agendas. The board members approved the consent agenda, which included as listed in the agenda:
Governing board finance committee minutes draft from April 22, 2024 and regular board meeting minutes draft from April 24, 2024;
An amendment to extend the "space lease" for the ambulance station with the city of Bayard;
A food and nutrition management services agreement with HHS, LLC;
Approval of physician employment agreement - emergency room medical director and trauma medical director with David Marble, DO;
Resolution 2024-14 for patient monitoring system improvement plan;
Resolution 2024-15 for infrastructure capital improvement plan FY 26-30; and
Resolution 2024-16 for approval of organization insurance policies.

With no old business and no new business, the meeting moved to reports and updates.

The first came from CNO Ron Green. He noted the hospital had held a skills fair with members of the nursing department and invited Western New Mexico University nursing students.

"Thanks go to our education department," Green said. "We plan to continue these fairs."

He reported a small delay until the end of June for the renovation of the Maternal and Child department, AKA the labor and delivery area. It was due to subcontractors not receiving doors on time and requiring engineers to review the work.

"Staffing continues to be a challenge," Green said. "We have four RNs (registered nurses) on leave from the Emergency Department, leaving us with one employee, so we are getting more travelers. Other hospital RNs and our interim ER director have been assisting."

He thanked everyone who celebrated Nurses Week and Doctors Week, as well as EMS (emergency medical services) Week. "I thank everyone for their service to our community."

The next report came from Interim Chief Financial Officer Tim Johnson. He presented a brief update saying that the hospital had had a good month. "Things are starting to solidify. It's looking good with changes for the future. Our gross revenue was up this month and volumes have stabilized."

In his report, which he gave to the Beat, the discharges and ER visits were very slightly below the budgeted numbers, but the OR (which includes surgeries and endoscopies) numbers were up and outpatient visits increased significantly.

"We added $2.4 million cash to the bank," Johnson said. "We want that to continue. We've made lots of changes within our revenue cycle, and we have some operational changes coming, too. We're working with everyone collaboratively. Things feel pretty good right now."

Whitaker presented the CEO report, saying he just wanted to go through a few items.

He noted there have been discussions around the strategic plan that was created in 2022. "Julie Haynes with HealthTech did a great job. We have talked about reviewing it and updating it."

She and others from HealthTech will be here June 3 to start working on it again.Whitaker said it would include administrators, department directors and, of course, the board to brainstorm. "Please think of ideas you want to target."

"We are targeting November to finalize it," he said.

With the orthopedic clinic completion planned for late June, Whitaker said the parking lot is the last hurdle.

He also noted that in June they would have three large items on the agenda, one being the capital budget and operating budget, "and we're required to have the board approve the changes to the budget we are in."

Whitaker said that was one of the items on the auditor's list that needed to be improved, "so we need to do that this year."

Fox commented on the community needs assessment. "We are interested in a number of things. We want to ensure the financial health of the hospital; we want to ensure that quality of care is being delivered; and we want to ensure that the hospital is a good and safe place for employees to work; and we want to make sure we are involved with the community to deliver that health care."

He noted that Western New Mexico University is trying to expand its healthcare program with the hospital, and so are the high schools to ensure a health care future in recruiting new providers.

Vega said three of the members met with HealthTech to talk about the needs assessment. "I think we all understand the need to involved the community, so we can better serve the community. It has to be comprehensive and inclusive."

Scott Manis, HealthTech regional vice president, said he met with Traeger, Vega and McIntire on the issue. Manis said he would like more feedback from members on the assessment.

Several commented on their recent participation in the Health Tech conference in early May.

Vega complimented the excellent speakers; McIntire said she enjoyed the collegiality with other Health Tech hospital board members and the contacts they were able to make; and Traeger said he enjoyed the variety of topics and getting to know people outside of the board room.

Manis said he appreciated the feedback, and said the members would have received an evaluation request for the conference.

He talked about a recent Federal Trade Commission decision to ban non-compete clauses in contracts, which would require changes to a lot of the Health Tech and hospital requirements.

[Editor's Note: A federal judge delayed the ban on non-compete language, so it's still up in the air.]

Manis said that day he had done a webinar with a CNO from another hospital on how to elevate employees.

Green said it was like networking. "It helps us glean information from their experience and tailor it to fit our needs."

Manis said Haynes would be coming back to the hospital in the next few weeks (of the meeting) to go into the strategic plan to work on updating it. "It's one of the services we provide for our hospitals in the management agreement, so it's not an additional cost. It will be at least a month-long process to be completed in about November."

"The most proud moment for us at Health Tech in the past couple of weeks anyways is that Modern Health Care, a magazine that comes out once a month, just named Health Tech as one of the best places to work in health care," Manis said.

He said the company had for the first time jumped into surveying their employees. "We had no aspirations, but to be named one of the winners this year was pretty amazing. I saw the results yesterday and they are phenomenal results on the survey. I don't know how we could improve in more than a couple of areas. We've been utilizing it in our signature lines and other places."

Fox congratulated them for the award.

With no questions. they moved into executive session.

Following the closed meeting, board members approved the Medical Staff Executive Committee (MEC) provider credentialing report.

They adjourned in open session.