Kimball Health Services may seek a change in affiliation

The Kimball County Commissioners heard from Kimball Health Services about its affiliation agreements at a lengthy meeting held Nov. 18.

Ken Hunter, CEO of Kimball Health Services, along with Jim Cederburg, Chairman of the Kimball County Hospital Board of Trustees, were present to discuss the Kimball Health Services affiliations.

“As a critical access hospital, we are required to have a referral relationship with a tertiary, larger hospital. We had that with Cheyenne Regional and we want to work to switch that to Regional West out of Scottsbluff. They have a much tighter management agreement than what we have had in the past and there are specific performance requirements laid out in the contract,” Hunter said.

The hope Hunter has is to maintain the services relationship KHS has with Cheyenne while having a closer, more involved relationship with Regional West. This relationship with Regional West would be a joint operation agreement, he said, and the current board would still make decisions for Kimball. Therefore, no ownership would transfer.

Hunter said that in the past relationship KHS had with Regional West, it was difficult to get them to follow through with certain things. However, Hunter seems confident in the changes that have been made, due to management changes.

“They hired a new CEO and one of the first things that new CEO did was approach Jim and I about our relationship with them,” Hunter said.

The former relationship with Regional West was examined and they were not really delivering on all the things they said they would be able to do with Kimball Hospital, so the switch was made and Kimball Health Services entered an agreement with Cheyenne Regional, Hunter said.

“We find ourselves about two years into this agreement with Cheyenne, in the same boat that we were in with Regional West before,” Cederburg said.

Hunter and Cederburg said they were confident in the new management of Regional West, and they plan to keep some sort of relationship with Cheyenne Regional when involving cardiac care, which Cheyenne Regional is known to handle well.

“We’ll continue with that relationship because as far as cardiac situations go, Cheyenne is the place to go for that sort of thing, so we will continue that,” Cederburg said.

The new CEO in Scottsbluff is from Tennessee, where he worked with small hospitals through the large hospitals and different types of agreements, therefore, Cederburg seems confident in what the future holds.

“The board of trustees will still have the same power that they have always had, but with this we will have access to a lot of new ideas and avenues of what we can do for them and what they can do for us,” Cederburg said.

The commissioners also opened sealed bids to purchase a new grader for the county highway department at the meeting. Three sealed bids were submitted for motor graders.

The bids presented were for a used Caterpillar Motor Grader, a 2015 Motor Grader, and a 2015 John Deer Motor Grader. Due to the need of a motor grader in good condition with need for little work, the commissioners decided to only consider the two new graders. The price on the 2015 Caterpillar Motor Grader was $222,355, and the price on the 2015 John Deer was 206,429.

The John Deer has the lever operation system and the Caterpillar has a more updated easy touch joy stick operating system inside the cab. However, the total price on the John Deer includes a seven-year warranty as well as two control valves.

“I think that what we should be looking at is saving that $16,000, I’d have to say that we need to go with the John Deer,” Commissioner Tim Nolting said.

Commissioners Larry Engstrom and Larry Brower agreed, and the commissioners moved to purchase the John Deer for $206,429.

County Zoning Administrator Sheila Newell was present to express the recommendation to grant the conditional use permit to add a communications tower for High West Energy’s “Enders” substation in the county. A public hearing will be held Dec. 2.

Carla Goranson, Kimball County ambulance director, updated the commissioners on ambulance business. Consideration for an additional space for ambulance personnel who have to stay overnight while on call was requested. Also, insurance for part-time county ambulance service personnel was another item Goranson asked the commissioners to look into.

Previously, the County Ambulance Service Advisory Committee requested permission to disband. However, the commissioners did not see this as a wise move.

“We don’t want anything to happen to you, Carla, but if something does, we kind of see it as the advisory board’s duty to keep things running and help out the new director,” Nolting said.

The meeting opened with the recap of current business and discussed was the recent election.

“The winners in the election for the county commissioners were Larry Engstrom and Daria Anderson-Faden. I just want to bring to the attention of the commissioners that this is the first time that Kimball County will have a female commissioner,” Kimball County Clerk Cathy Sibal said.

The swearing in of the newly elected commissioners will take place on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015. The commissioners meeting for that week will take place on Thursday morning instead of Tuesday in order to allow the newly sworn in commissioners to be active at the first meeting of the year.

The next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 2.