How can the Cook County North Shore Hospital better serve the community? Members of the hospital district’s board held their first workshop meeting Feb. 15 to begin work on finding an answer to that question, and one thing that became clear is that it’s going to take some time.
In fact, Board Member Tom Spence suggested that in order to do the topic justice, the board should hold monthly workshop meetings in addition to the regularly scheduled monthly board meetings—45 minutes on the business meeting agenda just isn’t going to cut it, he said.
Hospital Administrator Kimber Wraalstad agreed that the process will take time, but she said she hopes to have at least some of the answers by the end of the year. In an effort to determine the best use of the Grand Marais facility and its resources, Wraalstad said she has been working on plans for four initiatives, to be presented and discussed in pieces, rather than all at once. The pieces will be placed on the board’s meeting agenda at regular intervals, so each is revisited every three or four months. Wraalstad said she believes that is the easiest way to manage the process. “It keeps the whole strategic plan in our minds and in our faces,” she said.
Each topic as presented had a tentative deadline for completion, but the administrator said none were set in stone and noted that the completion of some depended on the completion or progress toward completion of others. Among the topics Wraalstad said needed careful review were program development such as provision of specialty services through telemed (electronic) or offering such at alternative locations closer to Cook County; evaluation of the hospital’s hours of operation (“are we here when patients need us?”); bringing medical specialists to Grand Marais at regular, rotating intervals and advertising their availability so as to make the trips up north feasible; addition of other sought-after services not currently offered; leadership development and staff training; and maintaining regular contact with the district’s legislators for both advocacy and to keep up-to-date on current regulations that impact the facility’s reimbursement.
Helena Blake next presented a facilities plan for the care center, which is aimed at determining what is its appropriate capacity; local assisted living possibilities and the need for the service; and remodeling of the care center (if necessary) and its cost. Noting that the 47-bed care center lost $1.5 million last year, Wraalstad said the goal is to find a sustainable model that works for both the care center and the hospital.
Speaking of potential changes at the care center, board chair Howard Abrahamson pointed out that the relationship between the two facilities needs to be paramount. “We can’t do this in isolation. We need to know what we’re going to do with the hospital before we make any changes to the care center.”
Abrahamson and Spence both stressed that the board needs to work up a plan that doesn’t call for such a large levy increase in future years as was imposed in the current budget. “We need some answers. Remember, the preliminary levy has to be set in October and the final levy by December,” said Spence. “I think we all agree that we want less than we had last year … but how do we discern what the county wants, and what the county will support?”
That’s why, replied Wraalstad, that a lot of analysis has yet to be done. “The various scenarios we come up with are vitally important. There is a lot of modeling to do, and we have the responsibility to say we’ve looked at and analyzed everything, and to be able to say, ‘this is why we decided to do what we did.’”
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