COVID-19 response and insurance options were two of the big discussion points at the Newman Regional Health Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday.
On coronavirus, Chief Executive Officer Bob Wright says certain metrics are ticking up. Inpatient numbers climbed as high as six last week, forcing the hospital to tighten visit restrictions, and percent positivity rates have also climbed gradually. On the surface, those are both counter to the current stats noted by Lyon County Public Health, but Wright says those reflect a normal statistical lag of about two weeks.
On insurance, Wright says work over the last year or so to develop a community health plan may be spreading past the hospital walls to the area at some point relatively soon. The hospital switched its employees to the Bukaty plan a year ago, with the option of offering community partners the same plan, including a preferred provider network, data analytics and telemedicine options. The goal, Wright says, is to save everybody money and direct more people to the hospital for care.
Wright says the plan is for the hospital to keep the so-called “commercial out migration” volume, which Wright estimates is now about 30 percent of potential hospital traffic going elsewhere — in part because the hospital doesn’t have certain services available, in part because there is no perceived incentive for potential patients to stay local.
In other business, the board approved several policies, including informed consent, do-not-resuscitate, advance directives, interpretation or translation assistance and communication aids for people with disabilities as part of the consent agenda, where several items can be resolved with one vote.
