The Cook County North Shore Hospital Board met on Thursday, January 18 to elect a new board chair, along with several other typical organizational duties to start the new year.
In the end, the board stayed the same with Kay Olson, chair; Sharon Bloomquist, clerk; Randy Wiitala, treasurer; all re-elected.
Grand Marais State Bank was designated North Shore Health financial institution to be used for routine banking actions such as deposits of daily receipts and withdrawal of accountants payable and payroll expenses.
The board of directors passed a resolution for Cook County Hospital District to apply for a Rural Hospital Capital Improvement grant from the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care of Minnesota Department of Health. If successful, Administrator Kimber Wraalstad will execute contract and certifications as required to implement the organization’s participation in the Minnesota Rural Hospital Capital Grant Program.
Following several months of labor negotiations, SEIU employees will receive a 2.5 percent cost of living increase each year for the next three years.
As part of the labor agreement wage (grade), increases were awarded to patient account representatives, paramedics, maintenance engineers, and physical therapists.
Also agreed to in the contract was work schedules would include on-call hours, the union will address block scheduling, grade levels were renumbered, a letter of understanding regarding supervisors and manager duties was submitted to the union and some language regarding dues collections and information was also provided to the union.
Hospital administrator Wraalstad was (once again) appointed chief executive officer for 2018.
As chief executive, Wraalstad is responsible for the overall administrative management and day-to-day management of the hospital.
Hospital board members are Sharon Bloomquist, Kay Olson, Justin Mueller, Randy Wiitala and Steve Nielsen.
With the two-year buildout and restructure in the hospital and care center nearing completion, the “Works of Art” project is gathering steam. Bonnie Gay Hedstrom and Tim Young have been meeting. Once the facility is complete, the walls in common areas and hallways (public spaces) will have artwork contributed by area artists adding interest and beauty of the new facility.
As promised, all of the residents in the newly completed care center were in their rooms by Christmas, some with one day to spare!
Smith retires, staff changes
. After 37 years of service, Rory Smith, director of maintenance, will be retiring. To ensure a smooth transition, Chris Lange from West Concord, Minnesota, has been hired to take Smith’s place. Lange will begin work on Feb. 5, and Rory has agreed to stay on until the completion of the $24.5 million hospital/ care center renovation and expansion. . Amanda Duenow, from Ashby, Minnesota will join the staff on January 24 as the new controller. Amanda currently works at West Central Minnesota Communities Action. . Shelley Starkey was recently promoted to be the director of Human Resources. She has been employed for 19 years and has served as senior Human Resource generalist. She replaces Bob who has taken a similar position with St. Luke’s in Duluth. . Payroll delay: Wralstaad reported there was an issue with the payroll on Jan. 5. The automatic deposits that should have been deposited in employees’ bank accounts were not available. Instead, the money was deposited later that day with a transaction date of January 8, 2018.
Because of the delay, Wraalstad said North Shore Health had to withdraw cash from its checking account and make cash advances available to employees who had bills that were due. . The power outage that occurred on Sunday, January 7 affected the hospital, but just barely. When the power was cut off, the hospital’s emergency generator kicked on and within five seconds the hospital and care center had power.
“This was a good test of the system and allowed Rory Smith to determine the amount of fuel consumption used during this time and determine a good estimate of how long the generator can run on a lot of fuel,” said Wraalstad.
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