COVID-19 was once again front and center of the conversation during the Sept. 22 meeting of the Ellsworth County Medical Center board of directors.

Jim Kirkbride, chief executive officer, said there were six inpatients at the hospital, but only one was a COVID patient. One employee was out pending results. Kirkbride said the hospital is low on COVID testing supplies and is reserving the in-house tests for emergency inpatients only. All the tests are sent to the state or the hospital’s reference lab. These results take 5-6 days to return.

Kirkbride said hospital employees are wearing eye protection in the patient care areas to protect against exposure to COVID.

In other business:

Kirkbride said he would like to see the strategic plans to be three years out. The first year would establish projects or purchases needed. The second year would be the planning and execution phase and the third year would be the adopting of the plan, becoming the operational plan. Another Community Needs Assessment will be conducted in the Spring of 2022 through Vince Vandehaar.

Kirkbride said he plans to meet with heads of various community and medical organizations in the area. He has meet with the Ellsworth Kiwanis, and with officials from the Kansas Hospital Association. He has also met with the Sunflower Network, officials at the Lindsborg and Hillsboro hospitals, and the accountable care organization. In the near future, he will be traveling to Hays and Salina.

Kirkbride met with the ECMC Auxiliary and received a $6,000 donation to the hospital. He discussed minigrants with the auxiliary, which would be the smaller items needed for capital projects around the facility. In October, he will present options to the auxiliary so members can vote on how to use the $6,000.

• After a 15-minute executive session to discuss non-elected personnel (appointments and reappointments), the board appointed Dr. James Summa as presented by the hospital medical staff.

Dr. Summa is a radiologist with United Radiology who reads the hospital’s scans.

• Shamarie Farthing, director of risk, safety and quality, presented the annual review of services to the board. There were no questions.

She said outpatient patient satisfaction surveys scored an overall total of 100. Inpatient and swingbed results also totaled 100. The emergency room had an overall total of 24.9 and the Rural Health Clinics totalled a score of 82.

• The ECMC employee turnover rate for August was 14.9 percent.

• There were no patient falls in August, but one employee accident.

• Steve Berkhouse, director of business operations, said the hospital had gross revenues for August of $2.3 million, with a net revenue from operations of $1.7 million. The hospital also had $1.6 million in operating expenses for the month. ECMC also had a $67,000 gain from the 340B discount drug pricing program.

• Approval was given to have Kirkbride manage the spending of the $74,000 in SHIP grant funds for COVID testing and mitigation. He said ECMC purchased reusable N95 masks for the clinical staff. He expects anther $250,000 in SHIP grant funding to be coming soon.

• Amy Ranker, director of nursing, said the hospital’s new Stryker patient beds arrived Sept. 3. Patient and staff feedback has been positive so far. Upgrades have also been made to the nursing storage room and the CNA workroom in response to mandates from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• No action was taken after returning from two 10 minute executive sessions to discuss nonelected personnel (the chief financial officer and executive reorganization).

The next meeting of the Ellsworth County Medical Center board of directors will be at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, in the hospital’s administration building conference room.