At the Nov. 19 Hospital Commission meeting, Mark Tozzio had three questions he hoped an attorney could answer for commissioners. His first issue was who owns the critical access designation at Eureka Springs Hospital? He also asked what regular reports about ESH could the commission expect from Allegiance Health Management, which led to the third question, what is the commission’s responsibility to the community, saying with better information about basic performance metrics at the hospital, commissioners could be better ambassadors.
“Not the nitty-gritty, just an overview,” Tozzio said of the reports he was looking for.
Commissioner John House agreed that having better information would make it easier to get word out about the services at ESH, but regardless, commissioners should get basic information about hospital operations. House interjected that Elite, the home health provider contracting with ESH, depends on patients for revenue, and commissioners getting word out about ESH services could boost business for Elite.
Tozzio added that commissioners should study the lease agreement with Allegiance carefully and have questions answered by their attorney, who according to City Clerk Ann Armstrong, is Megan Hargraves of Little Rock.
Tozzio volunteered to help Chair Michael Merry craft the letter to Hargraves that included a demand for back payments from Allegiance, and CEO Vicki Andert clarified that Allegiance had recently made payments for July and November, which meant only the payments for August through October were past due.
Andert also mentioned they hired a company to do the HCAHPS survey of discharged adult in-patients, a patient satisfaction survey required by Medi-Cal, and ESH always rates well so this would be information she would be glad to share.
The hospital is also interviewing for another family practitioner who would work mainly in Holiday Island at first, but eventually transition back to Eureka Springs. Andert said ESH has maintained its Level 4 trauma designation, which means staff can, when needed, avail themselves of the trauma.com resources to get the patient to the appropriate location for care.
She also told commissioners ESH must write off hundreds of thousands of dollars annually because of their care for indigent patients. “We want to take care of everybody,” she said.
Andert said she would check with Allegiance to see what reports she can provide the commission.
Scouting up a new Chair
At the end of the meeting, Merry said he intended to resign as chair after the Dec. 17 meeting. He would remain on the commission through the February meeting, but told commissioners to come to the December meeting ready to choose his replacement. House suggested they develop by-laws that would establish a procedure for electing officers.
Next meeting will be Monday, Dec. 17, at 6 p.m., at ECHO Clinic.