The Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH) Board of Trustees (Board) meeting was called to order at noon Monday, Aug. 28, in the BBGH Alliance Room. This month’s agenda included a report on HIPAA violations, Patient Connect, and the Joint Commission Survey. The consent calendar, July financial report, and credentialing requests were all approved as presented.
Chief Quality Officer Mary Mockerman gave a brief report on the type of HIPAA violations, which involve misidentifying patients or their records, that have been occurring. During the meeting, she said that BBGH has been receiving calls from patients that have received other patient’s information in their files or have had another patient’s information uploaded to their patient portal.
“We’re taking a deep dive with this,” she said. “We’re talking to staff and employees, Jordan (Colwell) and his team have put in a strategy to double-check some patient identifiers. We’re hot on the trail of this.”
Mockerman said that, historically, employees have received a lot of coaching on these errors, however, there are discussions about adding additional education in the future for when these errors occur.
Chief Operations Officer Jim Bargen gave a brief update on Patient Connect, which went live in rehab department on Monday, Aug. 21. Patient Connect allows patients to receive appointment-related text messages from BBGH. It also allows patients to communicate with BBGH in their preferred method of contact and promotes Patient Portal adoption. Bargen said that Patient Connect is expected to launch in the imaging and specialty clinics next.
Finally, Accreditation Specialist Gail Burke spoke to the Board about the Joint Commission’s survey finding. She said that her team is about halfway through correcting the Joint Commission’s findings. She also reported that this year there were a lower number of findings than average for accredited organizations.
New BBGH employees include: Lead Teacher Lauren Moller, Teacher Assistants Jordan Vaughn, Lana Blumanthal, and Amanda Bensen, and Rehab Tech Kaylynn Bauer. The Board also recognized August Employee of the Month Derek Flood, Rehab Tech, and the first BBGH graduates from the Iowa Online Nurse Residency Program, Tosha Greene, Trevor Ridenour, Courtney Schnell, and Sarah Davis.
The Board went into executive session at 1:07 p.m., with no action taken. The meeting adjourned at 1:49 p.m. The next BBGH Board meeting is Monday, Sept. 25, at noon in the Alliance Room. The public is welcome to attend.
