After almost an hour of discussion, the Kimball Hospital Board of Trustees agreed to table the proposal to call for bonds to pay off hospital debt or, have the bonds refunded and reissued to lower interest cost. The bonds were purchased when the hospital had to do remodeling work. The board has been paying in to a bond reserve fund and have accumulated a decent amount of money. Board member Max Revell, who proposed tabling the idea, struggled with the numbers he was seeing. Revell said he wanted to see hard dollars using today’s rates to better explain the proposal. With the proposal stretching as far as 2020, Revell said that interest rates at that time are unknown. Further, Revell wanted time.“I need some time to think about this more,” said Revell. After hearing Revell’s proposal to table the issue, the board unanimously agreed to do so.  Bonds weren’t the only financial issue facing the board of trustees. A preliminary report of the hospitals finances  was submitted to the board for review. CEO Julie Schnell, joined by CFO Jim Garbarino, explained the financial statement in detail to the board. Garbarino, who is a recent addition to the KHS staff, said that in order to accurately reflect the hospital finances, there needs to be a reserve set up based on at least 90 percent of the hospitals uncollectable receivables, otherwise known as bad debt.Although this will do nothing for the hospitals finances in terms of actual dollars, Schnell said that it would allow them to more accurately show the board where they stand. “In 2009 there is nothing wrong with having more reserves,” said Revell. Revell proposed that the financial statements be redone this time plugging in the 90 percent reserve on uncollectable receivables. Schnell reminded the board that this is just a preliminary report. Schnell told the board the she went before the Hospital Foundation to make a request for funds. Schnell said she requested $169,000.Traditionally the foundation donates about $50,000 a year however, last year Schnell said they, the hospital, did not solicit one. The money donated by the foundation is used to purchase equipment for the hospital. She said the foundation appeared to be comfortable with the request and a decision should be made by Friday, July 31.Cindy Cramer, Quality Improvement Coordinator for KHS, gave the quarterly Q.I. report. The report indicated areas where the hospital was doing well and where there needed to be improvements. Cramer said that reporting of incidents was up. She attributed the increase in incident reports to the ease of reporting the hospital has now. “It is good because now we know where we need to improve,” she said. Cramer said they are receiving excellent responses from the routine surveys that are sent to patients.  All areas surveyed had shown improvement in quality except for the explanation of financial responsibility to patients. Revell question if this was a training issue.Schnell agreed, but added that the people at the front end deal with a lot of confrontation with angry patrons. She stressed that not only are they fighting a poor economy, but also a culture. “It is by far the most touchy subject here,” said Schnell.Cramer continued with her report and said that out of everyone surveyed, only one person said they wouldn’t recommend the hospital to someone else. The E.R. saw excellent numbers on their surveys while the rehab area saw very little response, said Cramer. The information gathered from the surveys is sent to the appropriate department heads. It is used to continue with training for improvement. During the CEO’s report, Schnell said that nursing module of the Maynard project will go live on Tuesday, July 28. “There will be a learning curve but it should go well,” said Schnell.With the addition of a CPOE (Computerized Physician Order Entry) and a health information exchange -which allows the exchange of information with other hospitals- Kimball Health Services should be better positioned to receive any stimulus money issued as part of The American Recovery Act in 2012. As for staff, Schnell said they’d received a couple of resignation and the board needed to be aware of variances in the financial statements for recruitment efforts. Schnell offered to redo the statements but the boards said the would just acknowledge the variances. Schnell said that she continues recruitment efforts for a physician at the hospital. “It is challenging,” said Schnell on recruitment efforts. After receiving Schnell’s report, the board adjourned to executive session. No decisions were made.At the beginning of the meeting Jennifer Greenwood was recognized as the hospital’s employee of the month. Greenwood s a 13-year employee of the hospital. She has worked her way from a receptionist to an LPN.“She is a hospital success story,” said Schnell with a smile.