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:
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:
There was no public speaker testimony and no closed session this month. Observer: Lisa Slankard
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Cook County Health (CCH) Board Meeting
August 26, 2022 Cook County Health CFO Cassara presented the 3-year financial forecast which supports the 2023-2025 Strategic Plan approved earlier this year. It was developed in concert with the proposed FY2023 CCH budget which was also approved at today's meeting. Accrual basis budgets show a deficit of $41M for 2023; $48M for 2024 and $47M for 2025. CFO Cassara commented that closing these “deficits will require management interventions”. Support to the Health System from Cook County totals $228M in 2023 including $80M CCH pension allocation and $148M Cook County tax allocation for health services, correctional and public health departments. Cook County Health Heart Institute:
Monkeypox:
Observer - Susan Kern, MD Cook County Health (CCH) Board Of Directors Meeting
July 22, 2022 Human Resources Report: Currently Stroger Hospital is operating with a staff level of 65% of budget. This has led to adding $75 million to the outside staffing budget for the remainder of the fiscal year and has had some effect on Quality metrics. It also has led to increased resignations of existing staff. The Human Resource committee presented their statistics and the current hiring is barely keeping up with the staff losses and not helping make up for past separations. Before starting the new goal of hiring 400 new employees between 5/16 and 9/1, it has taken 36.8 days on average from the time an offer has been requested to the offer being made to the applicant. 450 offers were made and 317 were hired. The ultimate goal has been to cut the 36.8 days to THREE days. From May 16 to July 22, 220 candidates accepted offers. Since 94 were internal hires, the net result was 126 new employees. The hiring initiatives are as follows:
Appointments/Recognitions:
Public Health Update:
Committee Reports:
Observer: Lisa Slankard Cook County Health (CCH) Board of Directors Meeting
May 27, 2022 During Public Comments, eight nurses and nurse representatives reacted to the Cook County Commissioners 10% pay raise approved by the CC Board earlier in May. The comments were pointed and the tone angry. For two months nurses have been asking for a $5.00 per hour increase as Retention Compensation for their work and their loyalty over the past two years of the COVID pandemic, noting that the System is hiring contract nurses at much higher pay. They are also unhappy that they must use personal sick pay for personal COVID absences. Having been discussed at several previous meetings, the proposed 2023-25 Strategic Plan was approved by the board with little comment. The Theme for the next three years is: Impact, Change, Equity. Strategic Planning Officer, Andrea Gibson, noted that the data table will now include the years 2019-21 and also stated that Disability Access has been moved to a higher priority based upon public feedback. With approval, the next steps include developing detailed work plans and integrating them into a three-year budget. Chair Taylor commended the process and said it is a very good framework to deliver quality care over the next three years. Committee Reports:
Observer: Diane Edmundson Cook County Health (CCH) Board of Directors Meeting
June 24, 2022 Board Report Highlights:
Human Resources Report:
Managed Care Report:
Observer: Gwendolyn Maxie-Brown Cook County Health Board (CCH) of Directors Meeting
April 29, 2022 Israel Rocha, CEO and Andrea Gibson, Chief Strategy Officer presented a draft FY23-FY25 Strategic Plan for Board consideration and input.
The presentation evoked a great deal of input from the Board concerning its lofty goals given the ongoing shortage of staff as well as having heard the same goals in years past. This was addressed by CEO Rocha who indicated that although it was currently necessary to continue using agency nurses while they continued their ongoing efforts on retention and recruitment outlined in the Strategic Plan. Further, he referenced an announcement made on April 26 by himself, President Preckwinkle, Commissioners Deer and Lowry, and the County Health Foundation of a $1M Provident Scholarship Fund to support students who are from, and committed to caring for, underserved communities. The Fund will administer 60 scholarships this summer as follows:
CEO Rocha announced that the 1 millionth dose of COVID vaccine was administered on April 28th. It was also reported that the Report Contact Tracing effort was scaling down from 300 staff at its peak to a core of 50 trained tracers while the balance of staff have either left or are being absorbed into other duties. Beyond the immediate goal of tracing, the team increased relationships within the communities through networking and education which is being sustained and expanded. Committee Reports
Item to watch for in the Future: During his presentation CEO Rocha referenced establishing a “Mental Health Authority” to build out the behavioral and mental health footprint throughout the county. He was challenged by several of the Commissioners on the term “Authority” and ceded that it might be an office or department as the Board cannot create an authority which implies a taxing body. Observed By: Peg Moster |
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