Ellsworth County Medical Center isn’t seeing many COVID inpatients, but continues to see a few COVID patients coming to the emergency room and clinic.

That was the word Chief Executive Officer Jim Kirkbride had for the hospital board April 19 during the monthly meeting.

Kirkbride said the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has Ellsworth County in the high transmission rate category. Community level transmission is in the low category. He said masks are still being worn in direct patient care areas of the hospital, and any patient entering ECMC who has COVID symptoms is asked to wear a mask.

In other business:

• An offer of employment was extended to a nurse practitioner. She is reviewing the contract and should let the hospital know her decision soon.

• Human Resources Director Krista Bohnen said with the recent reduction in force, the hospital’s new full-time equivalent goal has changed from 145 to 137. She said although 10 positions were eliminated or reduced resulting in four employees leaving the organization, some of those positions were positions that had been vacant for months. For the month of March, the hospital was at 130 FTE positions. The average over the past 12 months was 137.9.

Bohnen said over the past 12 months, the hospital’s overall employee turnover has continued to rise, with slight decreases in November (25.6 percent).

The departments with the highest turnover were nursing (26.1 percent), environmental services (17.4 percent) and food service (10.9 percent). The top two positions with the highest turnover were housekeepers (17.4 percent) and certified nursing assistants (19.6 percent).

Recruiter Katie Malbrough has filled nine positions in the past three months. Two of the six full-time hires were internal transfers. It was noted Malbrough has filled 36 total positions since April 1, 2022. Overall, the average time to fill a position, from the date of position posting to an accepted offer, was 65 days. The average time to hire, from the date of an accepted offer to the first day of active employment, has held steady at 24 days.

The laboratory department has been working short for over a year. The hospital began working with an immigration attorney in August to evaluate options for recruiting laboratory technicians. After speaking to other facilities, officials at ECMC learned many are recruiting internationally for lab techs.

The hospital officially extended offers to two Philippine candidates mid-February, who have accepted. The process takes three to four months before they will arrive in the United States. Once here, ECMC will assist them with housing and acclimating to the community.

• Director of Business Operations Charles Lewing said the hospital had a pretty good month in March. He said the patient census rose from 32 in February to 82 in March.

Lewing said the hospital had $262,969 in overall net contributions for March and gross revenue exceeded $2.4 million. The margin for the 340B discount prescription drug program was a positive $109,000 for the month.

He said gross revenue year-to-date exceeds $20.3 million and is favorable to budget and exceeds where ECMC was this time last year. A net revenue of $14.8 million is favorable to the budget as well.

Board President Clint Rogers commended Lewing and his team for what they have done in a short period of time to right the hospital’s financial ship.

“You got us back on track for the first time since COVID,” he said.

Kirkbride said he greatly appreciates Director of Nursing Amy Ranker and her leadership for taking on the quality report.

“Her work there has been fantastic,” he said.

The next meeting of the Ellsworth County Medical Center board of directors will be at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 17, in the hospital conference room.