Howard Memorial Hospital Board Meeting

The Howard County Hospital Board met last night. CEO for the hospital, Debra Wright, said in her report that there are currently no employees out due to COVID. In fact hardly any hospitalizations took place in the month of November.  304 tests were administered with only 45 coming back positive.

Wright made mention of the hospital sending a team for on-site COVID testing. While the location was not mentioned she did say approximately 89 people were tested. Commendations were given to the team that carried out the task as it was on extremely short notice.

Also in the CEO’s report was the mention of the new OSHA/CMS Vaccination mandates for health care workers. Phase one of this mandate which compliance is required by Howard County Hospital staff has a deadline of December 6th with Phase 2 being January 4th. Employees of the hospital are required to have at least their 1st shot by these dates.

In a poll taken by administration approximately 127 hospital staff made known their hesitance to get the vaccine. Medical and religious exemptions do apply for this federal mandate. Wright said the hospital is taking the stance that religion is a personal matter and therefore those that fill out the religious exemption would be respected for their choice.

Board members discussed the effect this could have on the hospital making note that if not in compliance by the end of phase 1 the results could be a pull of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement which currently attributes to approximately half of the hospitals income.

Any compliance check would be spearheaded by the Arkansas Department of Health.