18 January 2005: Columbia County Health System Ends Year on a Positive Note
The Board of Commissioners for the Columbia County Health System heard the year end financial report at their board meeting last Thursday night. Chief Operating Officer John Burns explained that the System finished the 2004 year with a loss of $338,222, which is a marked improvement from the $1.2 million loss the system suffered in 2003. More signs of improvement was the fact that the System had lost a total of $480,000 in the first four months of 2004 – resulting in a $140,000 improvement over the last 8 months. “At the end of April we had $1.5 million in short term debt, $1.3 million in Accounts Payable and no cash on hand” Burns said. “Today all our debt has been consolidated into long term debt, we are current with all our vendors and we have been able to put some cash back in reserves”. Burns went on to praise the staff, “The whole staff has really stepped up and done an incredible job this past year but we are still a far cry from fixed financially”. “Our hope is to have a break even 2005, but we have lots of work to do to get there”
In other board business, Board Chair Roland Schirman welcomed one of the two new board members, Jack Otterson, to the board. The second new board member, Ted Paterson, had a previously scheduled trip that made him unavailable to be at the January meeting. Now that the board has the additional members, they discussed the possibility of creation of a finance committee that could review finances in more detail prior to the monthly meetings. Formal establishment of the finance committee is an agenda item for the February meeting.
CEO Bruce Grimshaw discussed the Health Systems joining into the state’s Rural Health Quality Network, and the benefits of being a part of the group. “The quality of care provided by the system will be enhanced by our participation in the quality collaborative” Grimshaw said. “Our working with others will help us learn how we can get better by learning about the great thing others are doing throughout the state”
Grimshaw also discussed the staff’s creation of a new customer service program that the Health System will implement in March. The program called “We Go the Extra Mile” will focus on those employees that go above-and-beyond while providing outstanding customer service to our patients and residents. “We owe it to our community to provide 5 Star Customer Service and our staff is committed to implementing a program which focuses on our customers” “We feel we have developed a program that will increase customer satisfaction and increase employee morale” “It’s exciting and will be a lot of fun!”