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The Salem Memorial District Hospital Board of Directors met for their regular meeting Tuesday night at the hospital library. Dr. Demorlis was in attendance to discuss with the board changes that needed to be made for the treatment of the patients in Long-Term Care due to state and federal regulations. This includes providing psychiatric care from Allied Health to treat patients and allow their nurse practitioners to also treat patients. For this to happen, the Medical Staff had to adopt the Allied Health by-laws to their own bylaws. After much discussion, the medical staff passed them almost unanimously. The Hospital Board of Directors also had to approve adopting the Allied Health bylaws to the Medical Staff bylaws and that was done unanimously. The board then approved active staff privileges for Anthony Kaczmarek, MD and courtesy staff privileges were approved for Edward Wiegers, MD in the ER, BunTee Co., MD in Psychiatry, and Sean Burns, MD, Derek Urban, MD, and Alan K. Fedge, MD in Teleradiology. In the summary of operations for the month of April, Hospital Administrator Dennis Pryor reported the hospital had a gain from operations for the month of $19,934 and an excess of revenues over expenses after taxes of $25,449. He said inpatient admissions were down, but the length of the stay for those admitted was up. The Emergency Room continues to see fewer patients than budgeted while outpatient registrations remain strong and above budget. Even with the gain from operations, the cash account actually decreased $2,317. The days in accounts receivable was 48, which is down from 51 in March. Director of Nursing Carol Lacy reported there were 51 acute care patients admitted with an average or 5 patients per day. She stated there were 734 emergency room visits with 55 transfers. The average turn around time in the ER was 115 minutes in April. There were a total of 170 ambulance runs with 164 patients being assessed, 30 surgery cases, 1,795 outpatient registrations, 254 Home Health visits, 8,137 lab tests, 1,056 radiological procedures, 170 CT scans, 20 MRI scans, 31 nuclear med scans, 1,605 cardiopulmonary procedures, 505 rehab treatments, 206 dialysis treatments and 336 clinical visits. The leading clinical visits were for podiatry and also for the VA mobile van. Pryor reported that very little has happened in federal legislation to affect the hospital, but the state legislators again failed to approve Medicaid Reform and also failed to pass the Medical Malpractice Reform. He did indicate that the money the hospital was to lose due to the state not adopting Medicaid Reform has been delayed until 2017, but at that time, the amount of dollars the hospital will lose is expected to increase. Assistant Administrator Kasey Lucas reported the CPSI Physician Documentation was completed the last week of April and people were retrained on Chartlink 5 while CPSI was in town. Lucas said an extension was filed for the MU Stage 1 attestation, and starting on June 2^nd, the hospital will be aggressive in collecting patients e-mail addresses and asking patients if they want to be included in the Health Information Exchange. He also feels the hospital will need to educate the public over time with help from the media. A total of 359 people visited the health screening in May and that brings the year to date total to 805 which is just 255 behind last year’s total. Chairman of the Hospital Foundation Joe Brand said the brochure is now complete and at the printers. The Foundation Program also elected new officers and they are Joe Brand as Chairman, Ruth Ann Parker as Vice-Chairman, Karl Dittman as Secretary and Hershel Moser as Treasurer. The board discussed the 2015 Finance Committee report to prepare the 2015-2016 budget. The market assessment showed a salary increase of 4% as well as a retirement plan increase of 4%, supply cost increase of 5% and a drug cost increase of 23%. The patient volume projections were calculated that included an outpatient volume of about 20,500 and emergency room visits of 9,800. The proposed gain from operations from the preliminary proposed budget came in at $4,571 with an excess of revenues over expenses of $458,571. Capital projects in the amount of $454,000 were also budgeted with the largest expenditure proposed was $95,000 for a new call light system followed by $35,000 for a CPSI PACS server and $33,000 for a Coagulation Analyzer. The board will review the report and discuss the numbers at the next meeting. Administrator Pryor announced the retirement of Arlene Cornell as of April 25^th, Evonne O’Donnell as of May 4^th and Marsha Radford will be retiring this Friday. There were no purchases made so the board voted to go into closed session.

An accident occurred at 8:15 Wednesday night in Dent County on a private drive three miles south of Salem. According to the highway patrol report, 30-year old David Norris of Salem was driving a 1986 Honda ATV when he struck an embankment, overturned, and was ejected. Norris suffered minor injuries and was taken to the Salem Memorial District Hospital.

Sports [TOP]

The Eldon Mustangs scored five runs in the 4th inning and held on to defeat the Sullivan Eagles Wednesday in the Class 4, District 9 Championship game at the Salem High School Baseball Field by the final score of 5-2. Eldon will travel to Logan-Rogersville on Tuesday for the Sectional game.

Matt Holliday scored on a throwing error in the 12^th inning as the St. Louis Cardinals topped the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, 3-2. Matt Adams and Allen Craig each had three hits, as the Cardinals won for the sixth time in seven games. The Cardinals and Diamondbacks play again tonight and you can hear it on KSMO Radio starting with the pre-game show at 5:40.

Nori Aoki went 2-for-4 and scored the deciding run in the bottom of the eighth inning that gave the Kansas City Royals a 3-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox. Kansas City starter Jeremy Guthrie limited the White Sox to one run and just three hits over the first seven innings. Danny Valencia also drove in a run to help Kansas City avoid a sweep of the three-game series. The Royals are off today.

Obituaries   [TOP]

Funeral services for Ronald Max Voight of Rolla, age 62, will be held today at 2:00 at the James and Gahr Mortuary Chapel in Rolla. Visitation will be held from 11:00 until service time. Interment will be in the Rolla City Cemetery. Memorials may be made to the Little Prairie Bible Camp Scholarship Fund.

Funeral services for Michael Raymond Reynolds of Salem, age 57, will be held at 9:00 Saturday morning at the Salem Full Gospel Church. Visitation will be Friday night from 6:00 to 8:00 at Wilson Mortuary in Salem. Interment will be in the Stone Hill Cemetery. Memorials may be made to the Michael Reynolds family.

Graveside services for Evadna Lee Heck of Houston, Texas, formerly of Vichy, age 93, will be held Saturday at 10:00 at the Walker Cemetery in Vichy. Visitation will be Friday night from 5:00 to 7:00 at James and Gahr Mortuary in Rolla. Interment will be in the Walker Cemetery. Memorials are suggested to the Walker Cemetery.

Funeral services for Freddie Eugene “Gene” Pace of Salem, age 81, will be held Sunday at 1:00 at the Wilson Mortuary in Salem. Visitation will be Saturday from 5:00 to 7:00. Interment will be in the Cedar Grove Cemetery with Full Military Honors. Memorials may be made to Phelps County Hospice.

Funeral services for Stephen McBurnett of Goodland, age 67, will be held at a later date. Memorials can be made to the Iron County C-4 School Track & Field. Arrangements are under the Dent County Memorial Chapel.

Weather   [TOP]