Three people that are very involved with the hospital/care center renovation are (L-R) Rebecca Lewis, Kimber Wraalstad and John Geissler. Lewis and Geissler are with the Duluth based architectural firm of dsgw. They have been hired by the hospital board to work with the staff and community to come up with ideas that will better serve the needs of patients and allow the staff to work more efficiently. Wraalstad is the administrator of the Cook County North Shore Hospital and Care Center.
Hospital board members were told that the proposed plans for a biomass district heating system were being put on hold, at least for this year. “Bids received from contractors were significantly over budget. Especially in the trenching for the pipes,” said Hospital/Care Center Administrator Kimber Wraalstad to the board at its April 17 meeting.
“Just to be clear, if they come back to us, we have not committed to anything yet. Is that right?” asked Board Chair Tom Spence.
“That’s correct. No one has committed to the project at this time,” Wraalstad said.
Director of Finance Vera Schuman said the hospital and care center generated an operations loss of $105,959 for the month of March, but was ahead of the budget by $2,770.
Schuman said gross hospital patient revenues of $928,741 are 6.2 percent under budget. Care Center revenues are running 5.9 percent less than budget, Schuman said.
Last month there were 28 acute patient days, 37.8 percent less than budgeted for, with swing bed patient days falling 58.3 percent less than expected. Also falling below budget were emergency room visits (21.3 percent) and care center resident days, which were 16.4 percent under projections. Only outpatient ancillary visits were 3.5 percent ahead of the budget.
Wraalstad said that on a positive note that the Care Center now has 35 residents, only two shy of being full. Typically, she said, the Care Center will receive more residents in December and January, but for some reason that wasn’t the case this year.
The board received the 2013 financial statement from McGladrey LLP, an independent accounting, tax and consulting firm who performs year-end audits for the hospital/care center.
McGladrey gave comparisons to 2012: Patient days in 2012 totaled 462 but fell to 389 in 2013; Swing bed days dropped from 1,556 in 2012 to 778 in 2013; occupancy fell from 7.9 percent to 6.7 percent, while length of stay increased to 3.1 days from 3 days in 2012. Inpatients admissions fell from 154 in 2012 to 126 in 2013 and outpatient visits dropped to 9,209 in 2013 from 9,391 in 2012. Gross inpatient revenue decreased 22.8 percent as patient days decreased 15.8 percent.
John Geissler and Rebecca Lewis of dsgw architects came before the board and gave a presentation about the process they will use in gathering information for the renovation of the hospital and care center. A team from dsgw has already spent four days on campus meeting with employees and Lewis said that someone from dsgw would come every Thursday to garner more ideas and information until they are ready to do the architectural drawings. Surveys will also be given to employees, care center residents and family members of care center residents to get feedback on what improvements they would like to see, and the public will be invited to meetings to gather further input.
No ground is expected to be broken until the spring of 2015, and the proposed $20 million project will be done in phases.
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