Galion Board of Health Meeting

[Editorial note: At the recommendation of Mr. Schilling, the Commissioner's report will now include Nursing and Environmental Health and conform to the Board's 2013 Goals template (see attached document)]

1. Accreditation of the Galion City Health Department

Doug recommends that Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) is not necessarily the next first steps. He states that Policies and procedures, quality, personnel manuals. He wants those to go simultaneously. Dr. Novack committed to find either additional personnel or reassign work to accomplish such tasks. Ms. Butz asked about hiring process. Dennis wants the hiring process restarted on the new nurse. 

CHIP: Mr Long recommends looking at leadership groups, he mentioned his experience on Board of Education, looking for groups such as industry, government. Mr. Schilling mentioned Avita

2. Get Galion City’s fair share of PHEP funding restored

Pending further discussions

3. Rationalize Nursing Functions

Ms. Crossland mentioned that some nursing programs, as important as they are, may produce no income. She states that there will be a need for at least one more part time nurse for school contracts

4. Implement grade level food health inspections on Galion City Health Department website

Ms. Zmuda stated that she is comparing other health department approaches to restaurant grading. Mr. Long shared his experience with North Carolina restaurant grading. He said that Newark (OH) print the restaurant reports in the newspaper. Dr. Novack stated the he and Ms. Zmuda discussed restaurant inspections with Mayor Tom O’Leary. Mr. O’Leary would like to some sort of public recognition for the high performing restaurants

5. Implement electronic board document system and 6. Establish secure internet section to website for posting of internal documents, forms, manuals, policies, procedures

BlueSky is accomplishing some of the needs of the Board. Mr. Schilling prefers a secure internet section on website for posting Board documents. He suggested Sharepoint.  Dr. Novack stated that he is unable to get further discussions with Crawford County General Health District (CCGHD) on the topic of the shared server. He will proceed with planning on ending the shared server as per CCHD’s request. He is awaiting an estimate from the ODH referred vendor. He has quotes from two other vendors.

7. Implement use of credit card for payment of services

Vital Check requires 50 transactions per month. The actual number of possible transactions done at GCHD will be tracked. 

8. Review, revise and convert into an editable electronic document the department personnel manual

Ms. Zmuda has emailed the digital copy of the Clemons-Nelson manual to Dr. Novack.  He will begin a process of revision and update

9. Develop set key metrics that the department will measure and track its performance

Dr. Novack introduced some base-line community statistics: STD, Hep C, opiate overdose deaths, other causes of death and opiate overdose transport numbers, teen births. Reportable diseases for May include Chlamydia cases that were 3 (year-to-date 14), hepatitis C cases were 2 (year-to-date 12). Birth statistics include residents of elsewhere that came to Galion to give birth. Out of 28 births in Galion in May, only 5 were residents of Galion.  11 were residents of another county. There was 1 teen birth from Galion.  For the first five months of 2013, Galion residents had 35 babies (in Galion); of those, 2 were low birth rate; 3 were less than 37 weeks gestation and 7 were teen births. Death statistics for May showed 20 deaths with an average age of death of about 77. The top 3 causes of death were cardiac disease, Alzheimer’s disease and respiratory conditions. There were no reported or suspected opiate overdose deaths in May or any year-to-date.  There was 1 transport of opiate-overdose by Galion Fire and EMS.

Mr. Long questioned how far to go with statistics. Mr. Schilling stated that the CHIP will drive some key metrics.  Regarding drug deaths, Dr. Novack stated that there has been an approximate 50% in annual drug deaths since 2011. He stated that drug death monitoring gives decision makers the sort of feedback that is necessary to respond to changing realities. That as a matter of policy, it will be necessary for the Board to set projected future goals for specific measures (such as STD or Hep C rates) and the staff will responsible designing and implementing programs that are effective at achieving those goals.  He added that it his desire, for example, to see a women’s health initiative deployed by GCHD. Mr. Schilling stated that the Board does need a set of measures to track progress. He mentioned birth and death certificates and social media. He asked for increased granularity of statistics and trending. He gave the example of the number of restaurant critical violations and nuisances, the context of those violations and charting showing trends. He commented that this would allow focused efforts. He stated that if work done by the health department is worth doing, it is worth measuring. Dr. Novack stated that GCHD has a very limited staff and budget. Mr. Schilling added that it is staff’s responsibility to determine what is feasible and be able to justify its decisions. He said that this is a “bottom up” approach. Ms. Kerr added that the Board is not present on a day-to-day basis to determine that community impact of health department impact. Therefore, measures will be especially important to the Board. Mr. Long asked about the possibility of developing a newborn parent training program. Ms. Kerr added that there will be difficulty finding adequate volunteers. Dr. Novack reiterated the mission of GCHD is to improve the health and well-being of those we serve.  There is a need to demonstrate that things we are doing are actually resulting in improvement. He added that while it isn’t possible that such a small staff can fix all of Galion’s health issues but it is the responsibility of GCHD to facilitate the communication among the groups of Galionites that can fix problems. 

10. Develop and execute strategic goals with community organizations to deal with areas of  concern shown in Community Health Assessment Survey

see #1

11. Communicate other major operational issues to assist the Board in understanding the organization’s business dynamics

Dr. Novack reminded that Board of the new city government, including installation of a new council, mayor, law director, treasurer and auditor.