The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON – The Columbia County Health System Board of Directors agreed last week at their monthly meeting that they need to move forward with a decision on how to spend the $5.5 million hospital levy approved by voters last fall.

“One way or another, we need to make a decision tonight or by the next meeting on how we’re going to move forward,” said Ted Patterson, board president. “We promised the community we were going to do something with this money and we need to do it.”

In February the board hired Stroudwater Associates, a national firm whose consultants design solutions for healthcare, to evaluate the hospital’s needs and provide recommendations. That decision came after a January workshop involving a number of staff and directors at the hospital to brainstorm on appropriate projects. The board now has the Stroudwater report in their hands, but they’ve been hesitant to move forward.

Contributing to the board’s hesitation has been the age of board members trying to make decisions for the next decade of hospital business, Patterson said. Three board members are 75 or older, so a turnover in board members is expected soon.

Even more challenging were the major changes to layout and direction of the hospital suggested in the Stroudwater report. In the report, the emergency room would be relocated to the front of the building, where admitting is now. Radiology and the pharmacy are relocated as well, Patterson said.

“I really do think it’s a good step, putting all the urgent care services at the main entrance,” Paterson said. But the hospital only recently constructed brand new emergency rooms, he pointed out.

Board members agreed to schedule a workshop for the end of May to discuss the Stroudwater report and determine an action plan for the levy funds before the next board meeting,. They have requested profit and loss statements from each hospital department prior to that workshop.

“I have asked our accounting department to do an analysis of each service department to see which contributes most to our marketability and which are costing the hospital,” CCHS’s interim CEO Jon Smiley said at the board meeting. I do support a real hard, unemotional look at what’s necessary and the profit and loss that will flow from each department.”

At the time the levy was announced, CCHS suggested that the money would go toward improvements to the nurses’ station, food service facilities, and a major expansion of the physical therapy facilities including the addition of an aqua therapy pool.

Stroudwater’s report suggested that the CCHS plan for moving dietary to Booker Rest Home might not be the best way to spend money; and although the therapy pool idea is still popular, the board doesn’t know how much it will cost to install one. All board members agreed a decision needed to be made, and soon, but they needed more information.