VMH loses $11,000 in June

by Brianne Eilers
 
The month of June ended on a disappointing note for Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH), with a loss of $11,717. Acute patient days were down from June 2010, but acute days were up from last year-to-date by 11%. Skilled days were down for the month, as well as down 25.5% year-to-date. Deliveries were up 2.8% year to date, though down from last June. Surgeries were also down slightly this year. “Essentially, most outpatient areas were flat,” explained VMH Administrator Mike Myers. Myers further noted that cardiac rehab started out 45-50% ahead of its budget at the beginning of the fiscal year, but have slowly dropped, still remaining at 28.2% above, year-to-date. Emergency Room visits were up from last year 3.6%.
Myers also noted that the hospital’s audit has been completed, and while the findings are not in yet, he estimated that VMH may have a bottom line somewhere around $165,000. “We’re not quite where we were last year, but that’s still better than we expected,” he said. The audit report results will be discussed when they are available, which should be sometime in August or September. Part of the reason that VMH has been able to have a decent bottom line in this difficult economic climate is due to expense control. Total expenses were down 4.4% from last year. “Had we been at budget with our expenses, we would have demonstrated a loss $200,000 to $300,000, depending on how close to the budget we were,” Myers noted. He recognized the “phenomenal” expense control efforts demonstrated by staff at VMH.
Another financial high point for VMH is the fact that the hostpial currently has $3,012,000 in cash reserves, which Myers thought may be the biggest amount in cash reserves in VMH’s history. Myers noted that VMH has been looking at the possibility of a second operating room, which he estimated would cost about $2.5 million, and he also acknowledged that in the next five years, VMH has over eight million dollars in Capital Budget requests, and while the amount the hospital has in cash reserves seems to be quite a bit, it’s still not enough to cover all the projects and requests that VMH is looking at for the future. Myers also explained the auditors have already been to VMH and finished up, and that report should be available for either the August or September board meeting.
Myers also discussed the most recent results from the Press Ganey reports for the time period of April 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011. 60 patients responded to the inpatient patient satisfaction surveys over the same time period. VMH was in the 96th percentile in patient satisfaction on those surveys. The overall mean score for the standard questions was 91.4, which was a decrease of 0.3 points from last period. 70.3% of responses to standard questions were “very good,” the highest rating on the scale, but that is a decrease from 76.2% the last period. The current inpatient score for VMH is 5.3 points higher than All PG DB (Press Ganey Data Base) external benchmark standard question score of 86.1. The current score is also 2.8 points higher than the STATE IA external benchmark standard question score of 88.3. Myers noted that VMH has been in the 96th percentile or better for approximately three years.
On the Emergency Room side of things, 83 patients responded to the emergency room surveys during that time period. VMH’s ER is in the 99th percentile in patient satisfaction. The overall mean score for standard questions was 96.1, which is 1.7 points higher than the last period. The current score for VMH’s ER is 11.3 points higher than the All PG DB external benchmark standard question score of 86.9. 85.5% of responses, from VMH patients, to the standard questions were “very good”, an improvement over 81.7% of responses last period. VMH has been at or above 95% for four years.
Myers also noted that the Foundation Golf Tournament was “a success, again.” The tournament brought in around $7,000 for the Foundation, and the Foundation is already at work planning the 2011 Christmas Tree Fantasy.