Employees at the Ellsworth County Medical Center have a collective smile on their faces — and for a good reason.

At the March 16 meeting of the hospital’s board of directors, Shamarie Farthing, director of risk, safety and quality, announced that on March 4, she received notification from PRC, the hospital’s patient satisfaction coordinator, that ECMC received two significant awards.

The first is a 5-Star Award for inpatient and inpatient medical/surgical services.

The second is the Top Performer Award for outpatient services and overall quality of care.

According to Farthing, the 5-Star designation is awarded annually to healthcare facilities, outpatient service lines, inpatient units and outpatient clinics scoring in the top 5 percent nationally.

“That’s excellent,” she said. “These are very hard to achieve.”

In other business:

• Jim Kirkbride, chief executive officer, said ECMC has not had a positive COVID inpatient for several weeks and there are no employees with COVID.

“The COVID stuff is pretty much gone,” he said. “It will pop out again though.”

• Kirkbride said some of the supply shortages he reported previously have improved, such as saline bags, specimen tubes and units of blood. He also noted that as of the week of Feb. 28, ECMC became 100 percent compliant with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services vaccine mandate.

“All employees have either received the appropriate vaccinations or have an approved accommodation on file,” he said. “We celebrated by giving employees a coupon for a free ice cream from the cafeteria.”

Weekly testing of those unvaccinated employees with accommodations began March 15.

• Charles Lewing, executive director of finance, said the hospital’s overall net contributions for February, $187,433, were unfavorable for the month compared to the February 2022 budget. However, the hospital’s year

However, the hospital’s year-to-date net contribution is $1,508,558.

“This year-to-date favorable variance continues to be driven by the revenue we have recognized from our various grant programs this fiscal year,” Lewing said.

Overall net revenue for February declined compared to January. Lewing said this was due to decreased patient volume in February. COVID admissions decreased from 16 in January to only 1 in February, while COVID emergency room visits decreased from 38 to just 4.

In spite of these declines, Lewing said ECMC still has a favorable operating margin compared to year-to-date.

• Approval was given for seven capital projects:

• The Ellsworth County Healthy Heart Campaign in which six automated external defibrillators will be placed in county buildings, including the Ellsworth County Health Department, Courthouse, Road and Bridge Department, Noxious Weed Department, Landfill. One will also be at the Ellsworth Fire Department.

Kirkbride said the $7,919.12 expenditure will be paid for using county and/or grant funds if applicable.

He also said he wants to expand the program to provide AEDs to other locations in the county as well.

• Purchase of one Stryker inpatient bed at a cost of $19,926. Payment will be by grant funds. This will give ECMC a total of 19 such patient beds.

• Purchase of eight new computers on wheels (COWS) to replace older models at a cost of $50,649.86 using grant funds.

• Purchase of four telemetry units with oximetry (oxygen level) monitoring making a total of 10 units for the hospital. The total cost would be $26,649.26 using grant funds.

• Purchase of nine Midray vital sign machines for a total of $45,211.56 using grant funds.

• Purchase of an enclosed trailer to haul the hospital’s golf cart to different locations. Total cost is $5,600 using grant funds.

• Outpatient laboratory draw room and swabbing station. Total cost is $16,067 using grant funds.

• Kirkbride said a contract will be drawn up with the Ellsworth County Health Department regarding the health department filling the hospital’s employee health and infection prevention vacancy.

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