Newman Regional Health is reporting a break-even budget for 2007. The board of trustees unanimously approved the budget Wednesday afternoon during their regular monthly board meeting.
Terry Lambert, chief executive officer for Newman, said the budget is considered break even, even though the hospital is expecting a projected loss of about $55,997. But, in an $80 million budget, that’s just a drop in the bucket.
“The real key here is that 2007 is a transitional year for us,” Lambert said. “We’re opening a physician practice (orthopedic). This is a break even budget. That was really our goal when we went into that process.”
Bill Barnes, chairman of the board, brought board members’ attention to $4 million dollars in improvements to the hospital that will be done in 2007.
“As a county hospital, non-profit, our responsibility is to re-invest in the hospital,” Barnes said. “We’re getting ready to invest almost $4 million back into the community through the hospital and we’re doing our best to see that we have satisfactory orthopedic (services) in the community. Those are two major changes you are seeing with us.
I think we are proud to say that we are meeting our mission to meet the needs of the community that we serve.”
Some of the budget items mentioned in the board meeting were that supply costs will increase by about 5 percent. New beds and mattresses will be added to the Women’s Life Center. The rooms are being re-done to have a sleeper sofa and a kitchenette area.
“We’re trying to improve our customer satisfaction there,” said Holly French, chief financial officer. “That’s an area where we have a lot of comments on beds working with TV and the bed working in relation to the TV is real important on that floor.”
The board also approved three capital requests during Wednesday’s meeting totaling $609,151. One of the capital requests was for $31,337 for a CPS Ventilator to replace older equipment. The new equipment will be good for use in the ICU, the emergency department and the nursery and has digital technology.
The next capital request was for a total of $403,500 which includes the installation f a new generator to include structural modifications to roof top, electrical power transfer switches, electrical distribution equipment and upgrade to switch gear. It also includes the installation of individual use outlets and distribution panels and installation of a natural gas standby generator, transfer switch and distribution.
The other part that relates to the generator request will cost an estimated $135,000 for emergency power for facility-wide air conditioning.
The last capital request is a 2007 budget item in the amount of $39,314 for adding a sixth server to a version of Meditech. With the additional server, reports and processing will be completed faster and accounting staff and managers will have information available in a more efficient manner.