- Present
- Board Chair: Michael Hemesath
- Executives Present:
- Jennifer Fischer (Chief of Staff)
- Zander Abbott (President and CEO)
- Eric Guth (CFO)
- Fred Rodgers
- Guests/Presenters: N/A
- Closed Session Announced?
- Yes – Marketing activity related to the Hospital’s competitive position with other health care providers that offer similar positions.
- Consent Agenda
- Jennifer – presented files with no problems this month; staff does vetting beforehand (everyone accepted files as presented).
- Moved from calendar – year reappointments to a more fiscal-year – based timeline. Katie, Crystal, and Rick were reappointed for another 4 years.
- Above all approved on Consent Agenda. Moved and passed.
- Reports
- CEO Report (Zander Abbott)
- Zander brought back 2025 performance results. Every quarter they will present financial performance from the previous quarter. 2025 performance will lead into 2026 performance goals. Did not achieve operating margin (budget) goal (loss), but the loss was less than the prior year. Partially met 50th percentile employee engagement goal because response rate was 63 percent. Met goal of service line growth. Quality and safety partially met (3 out of 5 hospital Q1 measures) (1 out of 4 clinic Q1 measures). Didn’t meet budget in 8 out of 14 areas, but saw growth in 12 out of 14 areas. Outpatient teams are very busy. 3 out of 5 hospital measures met for quality and safety. 1 out of 4 clinic measures met for quality and safety. 1 out of 5 hospital measures improved in 2025. 4 out of 4 clinic measures improved in 2025 (quality and safety). Past 9 months have been really focused on clinic measures. Readmission rates remain low. Overall, happy with the first strategic priority list.
- Questions and Comments
- With the work happening with Allina, is it going to be hard? What is the plan so they don’t waste above-and-beyond effort (with onboarding Allina)? How will they mitigate a large increase in patients and what will goal setting look like? Concern about focusing too much on technology and losing sight of where care needs to change.
- Records available; goal is to focus on colorectal screening.
- Access to Allina’s quality metrics?
- Have seen examples of dashboards.
- Engaged workforce definition?
- Benchmarking includes 6 questions that categorize employees as highly engaged, partially engaged, etc., and creates an average score. Not to be confused with participation rate which is those who were sampled in the collection of data. Partially disengaged category was highest. They now have their first data point. Next 3 weeks – pulse survey.
- Board members want to know what the 6 questions are. How can they use data to influence the behaviors they observe? What do they care about most, and can they take action on it?
- Next year may involve atypical operations.
- Do not want to lose touch with engagement or quality issues.
- CEO Updates
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) situation:
- Continue to monitor.
- Administration has met with staff and patients to review policies.
- Policies are adequate right now.
- Communication is robust.
- ICE agents have been in parking lots for the hospital and the rehabilitation center.
- Individuals have never entered the hospital.
- Front office staff are aware of their responsibilities if approached by an agent.
- Question about cancelled appointments:
- Navigating other ways to get care.
- Cancellation rate increased from 3 – 4 percent to 6 percent in January (observation). This could have been due to factors apart from the ICE situation like winter storms/weather
- 2026 Board Calendar
- Proposal to reschedule April retreat (4/10).
- No objections.
- Potential need for an early April ad hoc meeting focused on the Allina transition.
- Suggestion from another member: Don’t go the whole year without a retreat.
- One retreat scheduled for November 6th.
- Revitalize ‘25 Revenue Cycle Work
- Improvements from 2025 are beginning to show in 2026.
- Point-of-service collections improving.
- Results of the last 9 months of work are paying dividends.
- Coding is completely caught up (bills going out the door).
- Starting to collect co-pays up front.
- Kicked off denial committee.
- Northfield Allina Clinic Transition Meetings
- 17 community meetings with over 150 people participating.
- Opportunities to ask questions – creating a standard FAQ to educate the community.
- NH+C Jefferson Road Clinic
- Anticipated re-opening in September 2026.
- Community meetings are positive – people get to know Zander on a personal level and it is a good communication approach (observation).
- Good leadership: getting input before the change. Patients are hearing about it from providers. A lot of work, but a very important relationship.
- Finance Report (Eric)
- January 2026
- Rehab visits were down
- Inpatient days steady.
- Outpatient visits down.
- Clinic visits pretty good (under budget).
- Births 38 percent over budget.
- Key drivers: Births coming from Faribault at times (offering C-sections here).
- January 2026 was not a slow, quiet month.
- Staff are excited about growth.
- 1 million of budget for gross revenue.
- Decent income from operations.
- Days cash on hand is stable.
- Verbal Committee Reports
- Governance and Planning Committee
- Transition Committee report during closed session
- Budget and Finance – closed session
- Open Session Questions
- Break
- Closed session followed the open session agenda pursuant to Minn. Stat. 144.581, subd. 5,
- Marketing activity related to the Hospital’s competitive position with other health care providers that offer similar positions.
