With the recent sale of the Arrowhead Pharmacy to Corey Malstrom, the administration at the hospital/care center is looking at hiring pharmacists rather than contracting out the work.
At least for now, said hospital administrator Kimber Wraalstad, “We have a purchased service from Arrowhead Pharmacy.” This arrangement has taken place, she said, “since before I came to Grand Marais six years ago.”
“With the change in ownership, we are evaluating hiring the pharmacists DeeDee Larrock-Muggley and Jill Kort, rather than contracting through a retail pharmacy,” said North Shore Health Care Administrator Kimber Wraalstad. “Currently we have a contract with each of them as independent contractors.”
Both Kort and Larrock-Muggley also work for Arrowhead Pharmacy.
With the current $24.5 million expansion and renovation of the hospital and care center comes some new opportunities to provide new services, said Wraalstad.
“With our plans to provide chemotherapy, the large volume of medicines many of our patients take and the increasingly complicated medication documentation processes, the opportunity to hire the pharmacists to provide excellent coverage can expand our services and provide greater assistance to the physicians and nursing staff.”
Labor negotiations are continuing with the Minnesota Nurses Association (NMA), said Wraalstad, adding that so far they are having compelling talks regarding wages.
Wraalstad reported that the 2017 renewal rates for health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield had gone up 19.5 percent. Prices would have gone up to 28.9 percent, said Wraalstad, if Northeast Service Cooperative hadn’t provided some help in working with North Shore Health.
Steve DuChien, ambulance director, said in his 30 years on the ambulance squad service has gotten much better. When he started out, Basic Life Support was offered, and a part-time Advanced Life Support service provided. Today, when an advanced life support pager goes off, two EMTs and either one paramedic or one RN responds.
The number of calls for help has also gone up, said DuChien. Calls have risen from around 160 per year in 1986 to 444 so far in 2016, with one-third of those calls transferred to Duluth.
Despite that increase in requests for help, the number of volunteer EMTs has declined throughout the years, DuChien said. To alleviate that strain, Steve is teaching an EMT class this November with the idea that trainees will come to work with the ambulance squad.
Just like other parts of the state and the country, the use of opioids has gone up in Cook County, DuChien said. Since the summer of 2016, there have been five overdoses in the county. Ambulance squad workers have been trained to use Narcan to counter the effects of potential overdoses. Patients treated with Narcan are required to be sent to a health care facility for evaluation. Written protocols stipulate that at least two people will be on the scene when Narcan is given in case the patient gets agitated. Narcan is distributed by the pharmacy and is tracked by the ambulance department. This check allows that enough Narcan will be available, so it can be administered when it is needed.
Work on the hospital/care center is coming along pretty much on schedule under the management of Boldt, the construction company in charge of the building/remodel. One big project that is a little bit behind (while other steps are a little bit ahead of schedule) is the kitchen.
“We have asked them (Boldt) to complete the hallways (behind the kitchen) going to the hospital Care Center so we can discontinue the use of the old 300 hallway,” said Wraalstad. “It doesn’t help to have the kitchen done but none of the hallways leading to it. The kitchen consultant is scheduled to complete her inspection the week of December 12 and we are tentatively looking to ask the Minnesota Department of Health Engineer to do his inspection on December 19.”
If the inspection passes, the kitchen will then be opened for use. The original completion date was mid-September.
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