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| ed. note: The
below brief was extracted from the TVHD CEO's Communique
for March 2010. |
||
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Community
Advisory Committee-Update and Community Interactions
Our last regularly scheduled meeting was held on Saturday, January 23rd
with only 5 in attendance. We will continue to meet the fourth Saturday
of every month at 8:30 a.m. Our next meeting will be on February 20th,
2010.Construction Update Architectural Design
Our Architectural/Engineering/Design firm, Stephen Wen Associates
(SWA), has already taken their conceptual space plans to the next
level. We anticipate a full submission to the OSHPD in March 2010.
Allowing eight to fourteen months for approval, we hope to break ground
in the Spring of 2011.Bond Issue(s)
As previously reported, we had approximately $16.5 million in the bank
(with accrued interest) from the sale of the 2004 GO Bond authorization
to sell $15 million. Along with contributions and gifts these monies
totaled approximately $17 million before we started paying for design
and project management services on the new hospital. We expect the full
cost of the new hospital, including soft costs and equipment, etc. to
total $67 million. Thus, we sought and won a $50 million GO Bond
authorization approval on November 3rd, 2009 to allow us to build the
new facility. We don’t anticipate selling these bonds until that money
is needed and when the bond interest rates are more favorable to
minimize the burden on taxpayers.California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
Norm and I met with Karen Northcutt. She has been retained to perform
our CEQA review. Now that we have our site plan and designs nearly
finalized, Karen is working to complete the CEQA study and will provide
us with her observations and recommendations as soon as possible. Then
the Board will decide whether they can make a “negative declaration.”Capital Hills Site
We continue to work closely with Tehachapi City officials to work
towards making the Capital Hills site the home of our new hospital
complex. The City has designated our new hospital a street address of
2000 Magellan Drive.Quiet Room Fundraiser
I have sent a new letter to our mailing list of all local religious
congregations and other interested parties, soliciting their financial
support for the Quiet Room in the new hospital. I also solicited their
input on a draft policy on clergy and meeting the spiritual needs of
hospitalized and emergency patients.Skilled Nursing Facility
The District needs to make a determination whether we will continue to
“swing beds” to long term care patients or whether we want to borrow
additional funds to build a nursing home, or contract with a third
party to build and operate one on our property. In any event, it is
clear we will not simply turn our backs on our LTC residents. I
provided the Board a position paper for their review last month. Joe
Demont is working up a business plan and analysis to assist the board
in coming to a decision in this matter.Travel Report
On Wednesday, January 27th, Norm and I traveled to Sacramento to meet
with the CDC Federal Receiver and CDC key staff to discuss our hospital
construction and to show them what we have done in our planning to
minimize the interactions between inmates, prisoners and the general
public. We also discussed CDCR’s long range plans to meet court ordered
measures to satisfy inmate healthcare needs. City Manager Greg Garrett,
Mayor Linda Vernon and Councilmember Ed Grimes arranged for the
meeting, joined us at the table in Sacramento, and demonstrated by
their presence that TVHD and the City are working together well for the
future needs and interests of the Greater Tehachapi community.Contract Negotiations:
Drug Room Services
Kim Hoffman, PharmD and Andrew Petty, R.N., released an RFP on April
28th. Sav-On was the only proposal for the pharmacy contract for our
LTC patients’ prescriptions, but they never followed up with a
contract. K-Mart elected not to submit a revised proposal. Andrew and
Kim are reviewing proposals from “OmniCare” and from “Dawn’s Pharmacy”
in Tehachapi. After careful analysis, they will recommend a pharmacy
contractor.GemCare
Joe Demont and Carleen Warrack are still working with Stephen Linesch
to revise our MOA with GemCare for the new members and all GemCare
beneficiaries/participants. There has been a little more progress this
past month, but still no final contract.Hospital Information System
Our current and projected health information system needs exceed the
capabilities of our current Mardon Health Information System. We are
exploring their new product and other vendors’ products to determine
the best long-range solution to our HIS needs for the future.
Meanwhile, we have had to replace one of the Mardon system servers,
which will take our operating system off line all day on Tuesday,
February 9th. We can give a verbal update at the Board meeting.So far we have seen five Hospital Information System (HIS) vendors’ presentations; the most recent company to make a presentation of their hospital-wide integrated HIS was McKesson. We are still waiting to see what Mardon has to offer. Joe Demont and Dusty Colvard have taken the lead over this endeavor. We also expect to visit a current user to see their Paragon product from McKesson in use in a real hospital environment (as opposed to a demo system) on Friday, February 12th. Surgical Services
As previously noted, we had been approached by two Bakersfield surgeons
that were interested in coming to Tehachapi to perform “conscious
sedation” procedures/surgeries (such as colonoscopies) at our facility
using our rooms and helping us to gear up for a transition to doing
surgeries in the new hospital. They have indicated they want a cash
business guarantee that we are no longer comfortable with. In December,
we had a gastroenterologist also show some interest in doing procedures
in our hospital. So far, none of the local gastroenterologists or
surgeons has shown any interest in pursuing this business line in our
current operating suite. I will be taking on this project, but right
now other priorities supersede this initiative. We still need to move a
few functions around to accommodate re-opening surgery.Sincerely, Alan J. Burgess, FACHE, CFAAMA Diplomate in Healthcare Administration Chief Executive Officer, Tehachapi Hospital Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District 115 West "E" Street, P.O. Box 1900 Tehachapi, CA 93581-1900 Work (661) 823-3001 Fax (661) 823-3082 |
7March2010 |