Favorable bids on supplies and a huge savings in earthwork netted Allen County Hospital about $732,000 in savings, Sheldon Streeter, project manager with Murray Construction, told trustees at their meeting Tuesday night.
Streeter and his crew walked trustees through a wish list of alternate materials and additions they had relegated to the sidelines until additional funds materialized.
Of that sum, about $117,000 was approved for:
• Solid surface countertops in favor of laminate throughout most of the hospital for an additional $60,485.
• Roller shades over mini-blinds for an additional $6,588. The pseudo-fabric shades offer a “warmer environment,” said Cris Rivera, chief executive officer of the hospital. Because they are not made of fabric they are easy to wipe clean and provide better insurance against germs, said Patti McGuffin, chief nursing officer.
• An irrigation system around the south, east and a small section of the north side of the grounds of the hospital for up to $50,000.
TRUSTEES BIT the bullet Tuesday and committed $2.667 million for an electronic health records system.
Larry Peterson, chief financial officer for the hospital, said the five-year agreement with Cerner Corporation would be paid quarterly. An initial $203,000 “payment for execution” fee will be paid in the next few days followed by regular payments of $248,000.
About $1.2 million of the $2.7 million will be reimbursed to the hospital from the Medicaid and Medicare federal health programs, Peterson said. Of that, Medicaid will pay $255,000 and Medicare $959,000. Operational reimbursements also will be forthcoming, Peterson said.
The reimbursements are part of the federal government’s incentive to have all U.S. hospitals implement an electronic system to record patient data over the next few years or face a penalty.
“We hope to go ‘live’ by July 31, 2013,” Peterson said, enabling the staff to move into the new hospital “paperless.”
TRUSTEES had to be content with a modified emergency room entrance for patients who are brought to the hospital by other means than emergency crews.
The best design engineers could devise with the existing plan is a covered sidewalk next to reserved parking spaces leading into the ER.
A canopy that extends over incoming vehicles is not possible, said Bruce Jones, project manager with the architectural firm Health Facilities Group. “It would have to be 14-feet high which would not provide effective coverage from the elements,” he said.
