What’s Happening?

People often come up to me and ask how it’s going on the commission.  My short answer:  Great!  My long answer:  Great- but not easy.  Here is a brief summary of some of the work I’ve done with my fellow commissioners (this is by no means a complete list!):

1. Complete revisit and rewrite of Board Governing policies.  The board has devoted many long hours to improving and clarifying the policies that define board governance and we are getting very close to a version we can publish and begin following.  There are quite a number of positive changes contained in the new version- and I will give a more detailed look at these changes in a later post.  For now, stay tuned!  I strongly believe this work is a critical step in greatly improving our board governance.
2. Community Health Needs Assessment:  I believe a best practice in community health is for a thorough community health needs assessment be performed at least every 3 years.  Once in office, I joined Commissioner Buhler on the team working with the Health Department, school districts, County, and more to help perform just such an assessment for Jefferson County.  Much of the data can be found on the Jefferson County Public Health website.  I believe a final summary report will be created that highlights the top priorities identified.  (Here is a sneak peek:  The number 1 priority is mental health and chemical dependency care!)
3. Connecting Community Needs with the New Building Project:  At the request of myself and my fellow commissioners, a detailed study and presentation was performed which evaluated the new building project in relation to impact on community health needs.  You can listen to the presentation and discussion here (although you won’t be able to see the data and slides we are discussing!).  This work was critical for me in evaluating the new building project.
4. Community Health Improvement Work in area of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency:  Even though the final Community Health Needs report is not yet published, everyone involved in the community health needs assessment felt the need to begin immediate action to work to address the growing mental health and chemical dependency challenges in our community.  Collaborative work has begun involving many of the stakeholders in this area with more meetings scheduled.  I am extremely excited and hopeful about positive substantive outcomes from this work!
5. Audio Recordings of all public Hospital Board Meetings:  A final item I am very pleased about is that at the April 16, 2014 commission meeting, the Jefferson Healthcare board unanimously voted to audio record all board meetings and publish these recordings on the hospital district website.  I am extremely proud of the board for taking this enormous step in transparency for our constituents.  Once in a while, the board delves into some pretty interesting topics or has interesting discussions of proposals.  Now, if you are curious, you can listen to the exact dialogue of these talks.

Audio Recordings Note

As I stated above, Jefferson Healthcare is now making audio recordings of all public commission meetings!  You should be able to find the recordings very soon after the meeting adjourns on the hospital district website.  I will also provide links to the recordings if you follow the link “Commission Recordings” at the top of this page.

From time to time, I may include the recording in the blog on this site when I wish to highlight a specific discussion or issue from a meeting.