Semi Annual Employment Plan Officer Report To CCH Board Highlights Staffing Issues

Cook County Health Board of Directors Meeting 
September 30, 2022 

KImberly Craft gave the semiannual EPO (Employment Plan Officer) report. As with other departments she had staffing issues which made it difficult to monitor the plan. A new Program Manager and Information Coordinator have recently been hired. There were an unusually large number of vacancies during the reporting period. The hiring process was revised and a new plan was rolled out in July. There were a number of hiring problems found. Part of the problem was in coordinating plan rules with the outside vendors. The 22-page report is informative and detailed.

CountyCare's 10th anniversary was celebrated. Cook County Health’s emergency medicine and preventive medicine residency programs were recognized in Becker’s Hospital Review for being among the best clinical training programs, according to Doximity’s 2022-2023 Residency Navigator.

Cook County Public Health has sent out a survey to collect data from 34,000 adult (18 and older) suburban Cook County residents concerning their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and access to health care.  Using startup funds from CDC’s Health Equity Grant, CCDPH’s Epidemiology Unit is collaborating with UIC’s PHAME Center and Metopio to design and deploy an online atlas for exploring and sharing health information concerning the suburban residents of Cook County. The atlas allows stakeholders to examine, visualize and download health data using maps, charts and tables. The site is at https://cookcountyhealthatlas.org/

Iliana Mora, Chief Administrative officer for Ambulatory Services reported on the Asylum seekers that were bussed to Cook County from Texas. All seekers were seen by medical staff promptly and screened for disease and vaccinated. Children received all vaccines needed to attend school. Ambulatory staff handled everything, but additional help is needed if this is to be a continuing need. Contracted staff will be onboard next month. Money was allocated for this but CCH is working with state and federal agencies for reimbursement. 

An overview of the Substance-Use Disorder program was presented by Dr. Juleigh Nowinski Konchak. It is a Multidisciplinary and Patient-centered plan. 

An overview on Monkeypox was presented by Dr LaMar Hasbrouk (CEO of Cook County Department of Public Health).

Human Resources: While there is still a lot of work to be done to get staffing levels up, there has been a slight improvement and several vendor agencies have been contracted to help with the process. Slalom Program Management will ensure the vendor resources are allocated effectively to accelerate hiring. The other HR partners are:

• Cross Country – Onboarded March 2022 - Recruitment support for 500+ vacancies (Clinical), Talent sourcing support & marketing
• Incredible Health – Onboarded June 2022   Talent sourcing support in Nursing
• Brazen – Onboarded June 2022  Virtual hiring fair platform 
• Deloitte – Onboarded September 2022  HR Optimization - Compensation, performance management, workforce development, operations technology

Listening sessions have been scheduled to help with employee retention.

Managed Care: CountyCare’s enrollment has increased 7% over the past 12 months, ahead of the  Cook County increase of 4%. CountyCare’s enrollment decreased 0.1% in July 2022 compared to the prior month, ahead of the Cook County decrease of -0.2%. The vaccination rate of CountyCare members is still too low, especially among children. Only 21.78% of children 1-11 years are fully vaccinated. And only 45.2% of all members are fully vaccinated.

Quality and Patient Safety: Committee minutes were presented. Dr. Erik Mikaitis was hired as Chief Quality Officer.  The readmission rate was down to 7.49% in May, the lowest it has been in the last year and well below the goal of 9.93%. The case mix index for surgical patients, the top box score and the HbA1C goal were not achieved.

Finance: The finance committee met this month. On an accrual basis, interim financials show that CCH ended May with a $13.4M positive variance to budget. On a cash basis, the County’s preliminary cash report on revenues and expenses shows a $300.2M positive variance primarily due to the timing difference of CountyCare PMPM payments impacting the revenue and claims payments impacting expenses. 

Recognitions:

• CountyCare's 10th anniversary was celebrated.
• Cook County Health’s emergency medicine and preventive medicine residency programs were recognized in Becker’s Hospital Review for being among the best clinical training programs, according to Doximity’s 2022-2023 Residency Navigator.
• Dr. Michael Alebich, Co-Director of Medical Student Programs and Attending Physician in the Division of Hospital Medicine, has been named an “Emerging Leader” by the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group (HMPRG).
• Dr. Dhara Amin, Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and Attending Physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine, has recently been named as a Fellow in two prestigious health care programs.  Dr. Amin was named a Fellow in Medical Justice in Advocacy by the American Medical Association and Satcher Health Leadership Institute. She was also named a Fellow in Diagnostic Excellence by the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM).

There was no public speaker testimony and no closed session this month.

​Observer: Lisa Slankard