Andrew Bair, chief executive officer of the Ellsworth County Medical Center, gave an overview April 22 of actions taken by the hospital to prepare for COVID-19.

“Since March 16 we’ve been in a business not-as-usual mode,” Bair said. “We’re not doing things as we were before.”

Bair said each week day, the hospital’s incident command team meets to review a list of issues and situations with the goals of assuring the community the hospital is ready for COVID-19, and that it continues to provide safe and compassionate care while reducing employee risk and maintaining the viability of the organization.

Bair said during the last four weeks, the hospital staff have conducted drills to practice and perfect their actions to be ready for any situation that might arise during the COVID-19 crisis. These include donning and doffing of personal protective equipment, practicing the intubation of a COVID-19 patient, and practicing cardiopulmonary resuscitation and handling a full code of a COVID-19 patient.

Bair said the hospital’s executive team has been pushed to work at the top of their capabilities.

“They really stood out,” he added.

Bair said his team has started to look at what a transition back to pre-COVID-19 era daily operations would entail.

In other business:

• After a 30-minute executive session to discuss non-elected personnel (medical appointments and reappointments) with Dr. Ronald Whitmer, the board approved the reappointments of Dr. Michael Frederiksen, Dr. Michael Hagley, Dr. Ray House and Dr. Ryan Frederiksen as recommended by the medical staff.

• Bair and Mandy Thrasher, director of nursing, both said the hospital has a sufficient supply of personal protective equipment right now, but as Bair noted the hospital cannot replace the PPE it uses, so hospital staff are being very careful with what they have.

“I think the crew has done really well,” he said.

Bair said resupply of PPE is based on usage and ECMC doesn’t use a lot of the N95 masks, so it will not receive many N95 masks to replace those used.

“I think the state is doing as much as they can,” Bair said.

• Tina Davis, director of the Rural Health Clinic, said two programs the hospital recently rolled out are proving successful. The first, telemedicine, began three weeks ago at ECMC. So far, 18 patients have been seen by their providers remotely using this service. The second, curbside service, has seen eight patients so far, with more scheduled. Patients utilize curbside service by first calling the Rural Health Clinic, (785) 810-1177, for an appointment. They are then instructed to drive their car inside the garage behind the rural health clinic where they are seen individually by the provider without having to leave their car.

Davis said communications grounding equipment is needed to safeguard the hospital’s new telephone system. The cost to lease that equipment from Westar Energy of Paola is $6,742.50 a year. She will get more information on the equipment and report back to the board.

• Shamarie Farthing, director of risk, safety and quality, said the hospital did well again, overall, when it came to patient satisfaction with outpatient services. The hospital improved from 50.1 percent satisfaction to 92.4 percent satisfaction. Satisfaction in the Rural Health Clinic was 90 percent and satisfaction in the Emergency Room was 99.7 percent.

“We were able to meet their needs,” Farthing said.

“This organization has a history of providing very good service,” Bair said

“It’s outstanding,” board member Deb Hyman said. “You are to be commended for that.”

• Steve Berkhouse, chief financial officer, said the hospital had a gross revenue from operations for March of $1,789,933, compared to the budgeted gross revenues of $2,050,312.

Berkhouse said the nearly $120,000 in gross revenue lost by ECMC due to the COVID-19 crisis will be considered in future calculations. The hospital experienced a loss in revenue of between 30-35 percent in April.

Berkhouse said the hospital’s days cash on hand increased slightly in March to 42.21 days.

“Our ability to keep our investments and reserves strong will need to remain a key indictor as we transition through changes in payment modes,” he said.

Berkhouse said the days-cash-on- hand will increase significantly in April due to the nearly $1.9 million payroll protection program loan it recently received through the Small Business

Administration and the $546,463.14 it received from the Health and Human Services stimulus package. The SBA loan will be used to pay employee payroll for the next five pay periods. The HHS funds will be used to help replace lost revenue and reimbursement for COVID-19 related expenses.

Berkhouse said as part of the COVID-19 relief package, Medicare has removed the sequestration adjustment for the hospital’s Medicare payments. Sequestration is an automatic 2 percent reduction in all Medicare payments in place for all hospitals.

• Bair said the hospital needs new cardiac monitors at a cost of $22,000 each. He said the Ellsworth County Healthcare Foundation has agreed to provide $93,000 for the machines. Bair will provide more information on this at next month’s board meeting.

After a 15-minute executive session to discuss confidential data related to trade secrets or financial affairs, the board approved the quality and risk report.

The next meeting of the Ellsworth County Medical Center board of directors will be remotely at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 20, at the hospital conference room.