Health and Hospitals System Board Meeting - Nov. 18, 2011

The meeting began with public comment and 3 speakers presented their complaint to the board that the company they represented had not had their contract to provide medical gases to the system renewed. They stated their feeling that the bid process had not been done as in previous years.

In the Finance Committee report Mr. Carvalho stated that it had been the intent of that committee to do contract discussion at their meeting, not at board meetings, but two issues from the meeting were not resolved at the committee level and needed to come before the board. The first had to do with the contracts for the medical gases. Historically the contract for the gases and for the servicing of the equipment for the gases had been bundled together. In reviewing the contract it was decided to split it into separate contracts - one for the gases and another for maintenance in the hopes that better pricing could be obtained. At the time of the Finance Committee meeting only the contract for the gases had been available and not the contract for maintenance so thus both items had been referred to the board agenda so they could be considered together. Both contracts were presented for approval. Mr. Carvalho further stated that these contracts had used the GPO process whereby the staff investigates the vendors who can provide the product and service needed, and then makes a recommendation after investigating costs and possible savings. It is not a formal bid process. The contracts were approved.

The other issue from the Finance Committee was $1m that had been designated in the 2011 budget for dental care and had not yet been used. Mr. Carvalho explained that initial efforts had been made to link with Access to Care to provide dental services throughout the county but that linkage did not work out. Due to changes in administrative personnel, planning for the dental program was taken over by Dr. Mason who worked out a proposal with Community Health a near NW side clinic staffed by volunteer physicians to provide 4 sites for free dental care for 4 years. While the orignial intent of the allocation had been to provide dental staff at Stroger Hospital, Mr. Carvalho said that it was deemed to be better to have scattered sites for the dental services rather than a central location. The board approved the allocation of money to Community Health to provide dental services and they expressed their desire that money be included in the next budget for dental services so the program will be able to continue once it is up and running. Mr. Ansell expressed his concern that the program be evaluated prior to getting more money but Mr. Carvalho stated that he thought evaluation should not be done by the Finance Committee but perhaps by the Quality and Patient Safety Committee. Most board members agreed with that.

Mr. Carvalho stated that the projected shortfall for the HHS budget for 2011 is $109m. He said at the next Finance Committee meeting discussion will focus on contract compliance, the GPO process and how they can be better integrated.

Director O'Donnell asked about the decline in patients being seen at Oak Forest Hospital. Dr. Ansell explained that Oak Forest has had about a 20% decline in patients coming in. With Oak Forest becoming an Urgent Care Center there does seem to be some confusion in the community as to what that means. Dir. Ansell stated that the UCC will be staffed by primary care physicians and nurse practitioners and the location is also changing on the Oak Forest grounds. Community outreach is being planned.

The meeting went into closed session at 8:30am.

Cynthia Schilsky

LWVCC Observer