Members Present:
Anne Marie Bryant, Matt Driscoll, Jennifer Dusky, Danielle Frazier, Rachel Goodman, Jackie Pipes, Jennifer Sanchez, Maria Smith, Asailio Timmermeier
Members Absent:
Kim Allen, Tony Cowan, Brad Edwards, Stephanie Evans, Kelley Harris, Donny King, Crystal Lemus, Ryan Martin, Lauren Patterson, Jackie Rawls, Jim Ring, Candace Tillman, Lynn Wood
Staff: Shirley Corker (Community Development Coordinator)
Guests:
Alexa Haley Financial Advisor, Randy Davis (CEO NorthCrest Medical Center), Ray Render (Congressman John Rose Office), Oliva Seay (A Step Ahead)
Opening Remarks:
- Welcome was extended. Next meeting date was announced as June 9, 2021 at 12:30 pm.
- Roll call was taken.
- The May 12, 2021 minutes were approved with a motion from Maria Smith and a second from Rachel Goodman.
- Chair Ace Timmermeier presented the application of Jennifer Sanchez for membership on the Council. Ms. Sanchez introduced herself sharing she is a Project Manager for the Tennessee Department of Health and works out of Central Office. She works in Communicable Disease and Operations Preparedness, manages several grants, and has a $900 million federal budget. She has been attending the Council for about 5 months. Motion was made for membership approval with a second from Anne Marie Bryant.
- NorthCrest Medical Center CEO Randy Davis was introduced by Ace Timmermeier as a guest speaker in honor of National Hospital Week. Mr. Davis shared a PowerPoint depicting where they had been and where they were going. In January of 21 He talked about working with Fort Campbell as a possible designated partner to provide patient care as their resources were being designated for war fighters, and in February trying to open a new Behavioral Health Center in partnership with Centerstone, and recruit new staff to handle patient care from Fort Campbell, and then in March COVID happened. They got their 1st COVID patient in March and in July they opened a COVID overflow unit. Mr. Davis praised hospital Infection Preventionist Rachel Goodman for her handling of this. They saw spikes in November and December and still had to handle all kinds of other patient care. Patients didn’t do screenings and elective surgeries and the volume of COVID patients went down. The hospital was ready to engage in a marketing campaign to get patients back in the hospital and then they surpassed all hospital patient census. He praised the nursing staff for their ability to manage this volume of patient and continue to provide outstanding care. Currently they are having about 5-9 COVID patients in the hospital and cases are typically going down. But they are still having to run a not for profit hospital. Recent surveys show they have a 4 Star hospital rating. Although they are a community hospital, they have an excellent stroke and chest pain center with the highest level of care. They have been thru a process at Fort Campbell that has classified them as a military friendly employer for spouses. As of March, they became part of TriStar Health under the umbrella of HCA. The process will be completed June 30 and July 1 they will be an HCA hospital. He cited many reasons and advantages for this happening. One of the largest being people are moving out of Nashville and have access to many hospitals. They are not aware of NorthCrest and this move will help them compete. This will allow NorthCrest to have enhanced capabilities and be able to continue all their programs and services. The money from the sale of NorthCrest as a transition to an HCA hospital was put into a 14 – 16 million trust called the Robertson County Community Trust Foundation. This money will be used to serve the Robertson County community for years to come. HCA’s promise is not to reduce any services and promises only continued growth. Mr. Davis was thanked for the impressive overview and his leadership for the NorthCrest Medical Center.
- Chair Ace Timmermeier had recently asked all Councils to participate in a readiness survey to see when they might be able to engage in CHA (Community Health Assessment). Her feeling is that the Council did not need to engage in this process until the council could began to meet in-person. She felt even when this happens the Council needs to be able to meet for 2-3 months to be able to regroup and organize. She suggested the early part of 2022 would be an appropriate time frame to look at undertaking the CHA process.
- Committee and Coalition Reports were tabled as well as job responsibilities for Leads.
- With the remaining minutes of the meeting each member and guest were asked to give an update on an upcoming activity or their organization.
- Final remarks were given with a reminder of the next June 9 meeting date.