Hospital board discusses telemedicine, service levels, pharmacy availability

The Nevada Regional Medical Center Board of Directors met Tuesday night in the conference room on the mezzanine level for their monthly meeting. As has become the custom before the meeting an educational presentation was made.

This month it was the "Green Team" a committee formed to look at ways to improve the service and profitability of the hospital.

Observing the board Tuesday was Jayme Thorpe, a registered nurse at the hospital who is seeking a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing. It is a requirement of his course of study to attend a hospital board meeting.

CEO Judith Feuquay said the hospital's industrial medicine program was helping increase the number of worker's compensation cases the hospital is handling.

"We're seeing an increase in these cases," Feuquay said. "We've been talking to local companies and it's paying off."

Feuquay said the equipment for the Telemedicine clinic would be moving into the hospital and the clinic should open the first week of April.

"We'll have neurology services, educational services and of course dermatology," Feuquay said.

Feuquay reported the behavioral health unit psychiatrist, Dr. J. Vasireddy, had given notice that she would be leaving the hospital because her family was moving from Kansas City to Chicago.

On a related note the hospital is trying to find a pharmacy director and had an employee who would be willing to step up but needed some training first.

"We have a pharmacist with 9 years of experience who is willing to take over," Feuquay said. "The problem is he needs training in some areas like the requirements for the Joint Commission."

One problem the hospital faces is the critical shortage of pharmacists in the area.

"Overall the shortage of pharmacists is 7.9 percent," Feuquay said. "In this area the vacancy rate is 42.5 percent."

The hospital is preparing to go smoke-free all over the campus in September and is providing employees with free smoking cessation classes with free patches for those who attend.

Classes for citizens of the community will be provided free at a later date but will not include the free patches.

The hospital is in the final stages of preparing for a Chaplain program that should be started after Easter. Pastors Kim Osborne and Ralph Clark founded the program and introduced it at a recent Ministerial Alliance meeting where, they report, it was well accepted.

Chaplains will have a small office on the second floor of the south tower close to the chapel and patient floor.

The board approved a contract with Dr. Warren Lovinger and Dr. William Turner with Turner, a member of the board, abstaining from the vote.

The board was presented the annual report Quorum Health Services provided showing that Quorum provided $546,580 worth of services to NRMC with a management fee of $286,213 saving the hospital $260,367 last year.