WALSENBURG — With the holiday and budget season looming, the Huerfano County Hospital District voted last week to combine their November and December 2014 meeting. The new meeting date will be 12 noon, Thursday, Dec. 11. The deadline for submission of the 2015 budget is December 15, 2014. The board met in regular session Thursday, Sept. 25 and passed two resolutions regarding records and records management. One resolution dealt with designation of an Official Custodian of Records and adopting a policy on responding to open meetings records requests. The other resolution adopts the Colorado Special District Records Management Manual. Both resolutions passed unanimously and deal with records and information from district board meetings, not patient medical records. Spanish Peaks Regional Health Center CEO Todd Oberheu, as CEO, is designated as the official records custodian. In other business, Dr. Mike Moll of the Spanish Peaks Family Clinic introduced the clinic system’s newest physician, Dr. Donald ‘DJ’ Dutton. Dutton’s name may be familiar to clinic and hospital clients as well as staff members as he is a former lab technician who worked at SPRHC, prior to deciding to attend medical school. Dutton attended the University of Colorado School of Medicine and graduated in 2011. He was a part of the rural track family practice program and did his internship in
family medicine at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Denver. “In his short time here he has shown he will be a great asset to the hospital,” Moll said of Dutton. Spanish Peaks Veterans Community Living Center Director Marty Schlink reported the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recently completed their annual survey of the facility earlier in September and noted the few problems found were minor and will be easily corrected. She said the citations will not require a re-visit from the survey team. On the board meeting day, the Veterans Administration Survey Team was conducting their exit interviews with staff and management. “They have been very helpful, and are looking at many areas of our Home that is resulting in positive comments with a few minor suggestions at this time,” Schlink said in her report to the board. Schlink also reported the Third Annual Rolling for Freedom event on Labor Day weekend raised approximately $3,000 for veterans living center residents. Oberheu submitted his report in writing as he was attending the Southeast Colorado Rural Philanthropy Days in Trinidad, CO. “My focus will be to obtain funding for the Assisted Living Center project and capital improvement dollars for our facility,” Oberheu said in his report. He reported the electronic medical records system conversion continues as a priority topic. He said he met with the senior vice president for client relations from Healthland last week to discuss ongoing issues. Parkview Medical Center CIO, Steve Shirley was scheduled to visit SPRHC yesterday to review the facility’s IT system and make recommendations “related to our infrastructure going forward’, Oberheu reported. His report also said the Spanish Peak HealthCare Foundation’s golf tournament September 6 raised approximately $7,500. The annual health fair is set for October 25 at the Walsenburg Community Center and SPRHC will be offering flu shots at the event.
