Houston, MO— Texas County Memorial Hospital board of trustees received a formal resignation from Wes Murray, chief executive officer of 18 years, during the hospital board meeting on Tuesday. Murray is making plans to officially retire so he can spend more time with his wife Judy, and their family in the months ahead.
“Working with the staff at TCMH and at the pleasure of the board, has been the most rewarding portion of my 39-year career,” Murray said.
“I’ve had the privilege to watch the hospital grow from $37.1M in gross revenue in 2002 to $78M in 2019,” Murray said, adding that gross wages and benefits nearly doubled during that same period of time, going from $11.6M to $21M.
“With the help of our dedicated staff, this hospital has done some amazing things over the years,” Murray said.
“I want to thank the board,” Murray said. “There have been challenges, but we have also had a lot of fun.”
“You have made it easy on the board,” Jim Perry, OD, hospital board president said.
Murray does plan to stay available to the hospital for a while to ensure a smooth transition for the next chief executive officer.
After a thorough interview process stretched out over the course of a few months, the hospital board did extend an offer to Chris Strickland for the new chief executive officer position, which he has accepted. Strickland’s first day at TCMH will be April 5.
During her first board meeting as chief nursing officer, Amanda Turpin formerly introduced Courtey Owens as the new quality improvement/risk management director. Owens, has been a part of TCMH for the past 14 years, most recently serving as the director of Home Health of the Ozarks and Hospice of Care.
During his administrative report, Murray mentioned that although the hospital was approved to be a COVID-19 vaccination site, they have not yet received any of their requested vaccine.
Murray reported that the hospital COVID task force is meeting weekly and includes representation from the area FQHC clinics and the Texas County Health Department.
“We hope to collaborate to combine resources to cover more vaccinations for people throughout our community,” Murray said.
Murray added that the community’s interest in receiving the vaccine when it is available, has been very good.
Murray asked that everyone be patient when trying to access the COVID interest form on the hospital’s website. The high traffic on the website has caused it to slow down significantly.
The last item needed to complete the old east wing update will arrive this week. The central monitoring system was ordered several weeks ago and will connect all of the patient beds to the nurse’s station.
“Although we haven’t had to use the old east wing yet, getting the central monitoring system here and installed will be huge success for us,” Murray said.
“If our inpatient numbers increase in the coming weeks, we will have additional space ready to go if we need it,” Murray explained.
Linda Pamperien, chief financial officer at TCMH, presented the financial report for the month of December.
“Overall revenues were down $327,360 from our budgeted expectations,” Pamperien said. “Inpatient volumes were up $704,263 and outpatient revenue was down $959,871.”
Pamperien reported that the hospital is up 103 admissions for the year compared to December 2019.
Bad debt for the month of December was $630,488.70.
The hospital incurred $204,329 in unbudgeted COVID expenses.
Pamperien reported that under recommendation by BKD, the hospital’s accounting firm, the federal CARES Act funds that were booked during the year have been reversed. The conservative change was made due to the pending legislation regarding how personal protective equipment loan funds will be handled.
Pamperien mentioned that the contractual adjustments for the month were lower than budgeted, coming in at 29.1 percent. The contractual adjustments year-to-date are 62.9 percent.
TCMH ended the month of December with a positive bottom line of $100,461.41 and a reduced, year-to-date loss of $1,240,006.55.
Pamperien added that the decrease in contractual adjustments for the month helped give TCMH a positive bottom line for the month of December.
Present at the meeting were Murray; Pamperien; Turpin; Owens; Rachel Davis, public relations; Linda Milholen, MD; board members, Perry; Omanez Fockler; Jay Loveland; Allan Branstetter and Steve Pierce.
The next meeting of the TCMH board of trustees is Tuesday, February 23 at 12 p.m. Due to current social distancing restrictions in place as a result of COVID-19, the meeting will take place via teleconference. To attend the meeting, please call (417) 967-1236 and you will be placed into the teleconference meeting.
