Northfield Hospital and Clinics Board Meeting Observer Report from July 25, 2024
l. Executive Summary
ll. Call to Order
lll.Regular and Consent Agenda
lV. Reports
VI. Executive and Committee Reports
Home Care Transition Update (Steve Underdahl, President and CEO)
The Home Care transition is going well. There are 77 active patients left, and about 30 of them are still not placed with the new provider which will be River Valley. Some of the patients have high needs which might be better met in a nursing home facility. River Valley is now able to take new referrals. The goal is to have all patients transferred by September 9th. There has been no negative feedback about this transition.
VI. Executive and Committee Reports
- CEO Report (Steve Underdahl, President and CEO)
The July numbers for both the clinics and the today care options are down.
There is now a Virtual Assistant available for helping to book appointments, help with bills, request medication refills and message providers. No other clinic in town offers this service which is popular with people who are not comfortable meeting in person.
The hospital continues to work on forming strategic relationships with nearby clinics including Allina such as sharing a specialist.
There is an ongoing concern about hospitals being the last resort place to send people who may have no other place to go– often patients who are mentally ill or elderly patients who don’t seem able to function at home alone. There was recently a child living in the hospital here for some time who did not meet the criteria for hospitalization but had no other place available to go. The hospital does not get adequate compensation for many of these patients, who can cost from 3,500 to 5,000 a day. The mission of the hospital means that they will keep these patients. The hospital is not equipped to deal with some of them. A plan has been developed to deal with this in the short term, but it is a much broader societal problem. The plan includes:
Reestablishing psychiatric triage– can someone go home safely with a plan?
Cultivating relationships with community providers so that they keep some open slots for these patients.
Having a prescriber on call who can help with the complicated medication needs of some of these patients.
A letter has been sent to patients regarding the cyber breach. There were about 25,000 patients from NH+C affected.
In response to a tragic choking incident this summer which resulted in the death of a child, the hospital has reached out to 5 different locations in town where people were trained in what to do in an emergency. This class covered choking, CPR, and calling 911 and interpretation was available.
Some health systems (such as Health Partners) are leaving partnerships with Medicare Advantage Plans. 50% of people with Medicare Advantage Plans don’t really understand what they mean. They are a “crummy deal” for patients. You are giving up your Medicare and taking a different product. Medicare supplements are a different thing and they are okay. The hospital is working on developing some less complicated information about what the terms mean in order to better inform people about this.
- Financial Report (Eric Guth, CFO)
There was a loss of 1.48 million dollars in July.
Summer tends to have lower volumes particularly in outpatient clinics.
The CEO is still reasonably sure that we will have a balanced budget by the end of the year.
- Verbal Budget and Finance Committee report (Fred Rogers)
The committee met last week. They worked on three things:
The status of the budget.
Update on negotiations with providers
The 18.6 million dollars of debt.
It is hoped to pay off all but 5 million this year. Eric Goth is looking into refinancing some of this.
- Governance and Planning Committee (Verbal) Report (Sarah Carlson, Board Chair)
Resumes are coming in for the CEO job. They will start looking at them in early August. All is on track so far.
Respectfully submitted by observer Anne Larson.
