It didn’t come down to a motion, but following a presentation by Lisa Bodine, president of Giant Voices, a Duluth marketing and advertising firm selected by the board to help the hospital and care center make some changes during the $24.5 million rehabilitation of the facilities, board members were all but in agreement to changing the name of the Cook County North Shore Hospital and Care Center to North Shore Health.
Hospital Board Member Tom Spence asked Barb Heidemann, who was on hand to give an update from the North Shore Health Care Foundation (NSHCF), if she thought the name sounded too much like NSHCF, but she said no, she didn’t think the new name would cause any confusion.
Bodine said the name switch would help eliminate confusion between the hospital in Grand Marais and the hospital in Cook, Minnesota.
While the board didn’t vote on the name change, they all said they liked it.
Bodine also presented three new logos to the board for consideration. She said her team has worked with hospital employees and administration to design logos that were “clean, crisp, fresh, and new” and would still maintain the facility’s identity.
Bodine unveiled the logos labeled one, two, and three, and the board voted. Only number two received two votes. The first depicts the lighthouse in Grand Marais. The second depicts trees and hills, but Board Member Spence said the trees looked like teepees and he thought the residents of Grand Portage might take offense. The third looked a little bit like Donald Trump’s hair riding a blue wave, but was a favorite of the hospital employee committee.
Spence suggested opening the selection process to the community but Bodine cautioned against such a move, noting the wide disagreement among just the five board members. The board decided to make a selection at its next meeting.
Health Care Foundation grants awarded
Barb Heidemann came before the board and announced some of the NSHCF third quarter grants. Care Partners of Cook County received $6,428 for general operating support, said Heidemann.
Cook County North Shore Hospital received $1,898 for a pediatric immobilizer. “That’s to keep kids from squirming when they get X-rays” Heidemann said.
The hospital also received $580 for continuing education in the occupational therapy department. The Grand Marais Fire Department received $300 for fire safety education.
All told, Heidemann said the NSHCF distributed more than $72,000 in grants during the third quarter.
Financial Report
Vera Schumann, director of finance, reported that August was a good month for the hospital.
Schumann said the hospital and care center generated income from operations of $172,210, performing $252,426 ahead of budget year to date. She said gross hospital patient revenues of $1,431,978 are $409,411 or 40 percent greater than budget year to date. Care Center revenues, said Schumann, are “running 26 percent behind budget.”
Schumann said acute patient days are 1 percent ahead of budget and 1 percent ahead of last year at this time. Swing bed days are 16 percent ahead of budget and care center days are 20 percent behind budget. Emergency room visits are 33 percent ahead of budget, colonoscopies 11 ahead, physical therapy and occupational therapy departments 5 percent ahead and the laboratory was 26 percent ahead of budget.
Year to date, said Schumann, “Cook County North Shore Hospital and Care Center generated a loss from operations of $424,195 performing $207,423 better than budgeted with a net margin of 17.1 percent compared to minus half of one percent of the budget.”
Construction well under way
BOLDT Construction Supervisor Ruth Drake came before the board with an update about the work going on at the care center, which is Phase 1 of a fourphase project that will encompass the hospital and care center as the facilities are expanded and completely redone over a two-year period.
Currently Lamb Construction is doing some blasting on the south side of the care center while Edwin E. Thoreson, Inc. is working on the parking lot, which is now closed to traffic. Clearing and grubbing will also take place on the south side and crews will soon lay out the new foundation on both the south and north sides of the care center, Drake said.
Drake said soil testing and soil samples were being taken and so far they have indicated that better fill might have to be brought in before foundations could be poured due to more black dirt and sandy fill found than was expected. But that might change if better soils are found, Drake said.
So far nine employees are working on the job with more to come, Drake said. Two small accidents have occurred to date. A trucker scratched a hospital employee’s car when he backed into a too-tight space and the telephone system was knocked out for 15 minutes because a control panel was exposed and got wet. Hospital Care Center Director Kimber Wraalstad said the phone provider sent a worker to fix the phone system almost immediately, and she thanked them for their fast service.
Leave a Reply