North Shore Health (NSH) received a $60,000 Rural Hospital Capital Improvement grant, which will be used to purchase two additional self-loading cots for the ambulances and a new stretcher for the emergency department.
The announcement came at the hospital board’s Thursday, April 19 meeting.
The hospital is responsible for 20 percent of the payment in matching funds.
NSH Adminstrator Kimber Wraalstad said the grant process was highly competitive, with more than $5 million in requests and only $1,750,000 available in funding. Wraalstad thanked Vera Schumann, Steve DuChien and Amy Lacina for their hard work in preparing and submitting the grant application.
Angie Works, an RN who works in the care center will participate in the Leading Age Minnesota Leadership Symposium said Wraalstad.
The symposium is designed to help nurses who are on a leadership track.
Training lasts five months and includes 15 classroom days. Over that time nurses gain skills that help them become leaders.
North Shore Health has had several graduates of this program. They include Amy Lacina, who is the hospital director of nursing; Amy James, care center interim director of nursing; Robert McGregor, care center interim director of nursing; and Shannon Curran, who is the hospital clinic nurse manager.
Wraalstad reported that NSH received the final conditional payment for the chemotherapy hoods. “This formally marks the completion of the pharmacy rooms with the installation and certification of the hoods; a major milestone for North Shore Health’s construction project,” noted Wraalstad, adding, “We would like to recognize and thank Paul and Carol Schaap for the donation of $52,000 to be used toward the purchase and installation of the chemotherapy hoods.”
Currently, five nurses are completing an online Oncology Nursing education program. Included in their course work is three days of training at the St. Luke’s Infusion Center.
Wraalstad said NSH hopes to have this service available later this summer.
Patient/residence experience
Last August 2017, the care center began training staff to transform its system of service to the residents to a household/resident direct care model. Since that time training has been ongoing with goals and milestones reviewed at the hospital board meeting.
Not forgotten in the transition are the families of the residents. A multidisciplinary team is using a list of questions to ask residents and family members about the preferences, needs, and quality of life issues that face the residents. The activities department has been maintaining a “Getting to Know You” book for each household that has information about residents in that household. These books are readily available for all care center staff to access.
NSH reviews outside lighting
Chris Lange, NSH maintenance director, sent the board an update about a request from community members about ways to lessen the hospital’s exterior lighting conditions.
As a spokesperson for the community members, Bryan Hansel addressed the hospital board at the board’s last meeting during the public comments period. Hansel said his group was concerned about the impacts the hospital’s exterior lighting had on the community, tourism, and quality of life.
Hansel said he is attempting to have Grand Marais certified as a “Dark Sky Town.”
Since Hansel’s request, Lange has met with engineers, contractors, vendors, and energy representatives, including Obermiller Nelson Engineering (ONE), Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency energy representative Keith Butcher, Holden Electric and various lighting vendors.
Lange said he would continue to search for solutions that address the concerns identified by the community members. As information is received, NSH will include Mr. Hansel in the discussion about the proposed solutions as developed for review with the board, noted Lange.
As for the current lighting, ONE said the hospital’s exterior lights were designed to the same standard the Minnesota Department of Transportation (DOT) used for streetlights and highways for safe travel.
Rededication ceremony
After two and one-half years of steady year-round work, all of the upgrades and new spaces are nearing completion at the hospital and care center. To celebrate, a rededication and ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 17.
Tours of the facility will be given during the open house and a time capsule found in the 1957 cornerstone will be opened. What could possibly be in it? Come to the celebration and find out.
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