WARREN, Ark. (12/28/23) – The Bradley County Medical Center Board of Directors met Thursday, Dec. 28 in the BCMC Conference Room for its last monthly gathering of 2023 with updates from hospital executives taking up the majority of items on the agenda.
The previous month’s minutes were approved to begin the meeting. Controller Matt Pace reported on the financials with $3,790,977 in gross patient revenue and a net operating revenue of $1,476,604 for the month of November. There was $123,665.76 in sales tax revenue for the month with a total balance of $4,206,692.48 in the sales tax fund. Additionally, Pace reported that volumes were slightly down in most departments, but the senior care unit had a 53% increase from last month.
BCMC CEO/CFO Leslie Huitt presented her update and echoed what Pace said about volumes while pointing out there was an increase in surgeries, ER visits, and home health visits. Huitt stated she is seeing positive financial signs including an increase of overall cash by $30,000 and another $40,000 reserved in CD’s. Accounts receivable also decreased by $630,000.
Other updates from Huitt included informing the board that the new Meditech go-live date is Jan. 23, 2024. She said it’s taken up so much of her time along with other staff members, but the hospital is excited about completing the transition to the new electronic health records system in a few weeks. Huitt also said she’s been working on a financial audit and cost report when she hasn’t been concentrating on Meditech.
Chief Nursing Officer Jamie Wolfe reported that the med-surg unit has been busy and they have been trying to find the right balance with acute patients and swing beds. He touched on the emergency department which has been steady. Wolfe then said there has been an increase in COVID-19 cases, but fortunately it seems to be a milder illness this time around. The hospital has also seen flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) cases recently.
The CNO continued by going into some more detail on the surge in senior care patients. The unit has a capacity of eight and has been at six for several of the last few days. The unit had seven for a little while, which is the most that he can remember during his tenure at BCMC. The unit was down to five today with some discharges, but has more consults scheduled so he was happy to see the volume increase. The last thing Wolfe touched on was letting the board know the nursing staff underwent additional Meditech trainings this week.
Chief Operating Officer Leeanna Williams echoed much of what Huitt and Wolfe said about Meditech. She then went on to explain a slight change forthcoming in how policies will be handled. BCMC utilizes an online service to store policies and each policy must be approved individually. To help expedite the process, the board will still approve all policies, but there will be one sheet signed to be uploaded into the system starting in January.
The only policies up for approval this month were from the home health department. They were approved unanimously.
Huitt alerted the board to an email sent out by the Arkansas Department of Health on Wednesday, Dec. 27 communicating that several hospitals in Arkansas had received bomb threats via email. Bradley County Medical Center was not one of the hospitals to receive a threat but used this as a chance to review their bomb threat policy with all managers in case it happens in the future.
The meeting concluded with the board approving the use the sales tax funds to buy a new steamer for the kitchen. There was no executive session, and the meeting was adjourned.
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