Hospital looks for internet back-up

Faith Community Hospital is looking to more reliably continue its communication services following two recent AT&T outages in the span of a week.

Hospital administrator Frank Beaman reported to the Jack County Hospital District Board of Directors at its meeting Tuesday, the hospital is seeking alternative back-up through New Source Broadband wireless service.

“It’s crazy that AT&T would have in just that short of time that significant of outages,” Beaman said.

Also at the meeting David Spiller, attorney for the district, swore in incumbent board members Edwina Swan and Larry Hopwood.

Swan and Hopwood were re-elected to hold their positions on the board of directors in the Nov. 7 election.

The board voted to make no changes to its officers and committee appointments. The board officers are President Lori McBrayer, Vice President Edwina Swan and Secretary Mark Maples.

Hopwood will continue serving on the quality assurance committee, Swan on the medical staff committee, Maples on the building and grounds committee and McBrayer on the foundation committee.

McBrayer reported the third Shape-Up in Faith wellness project will begin Jan. 8 and continue through March 17 concluding with a 5k run.

Beaman reported the hospital staff will participate in a departmental competition during Shape-Up in Faith.

The board appointed Billy Cypert to continue serving as the hospital district representative on the Jack County Appraisal District Board. The board also approved granting medical staff privileges to Drs. James Cawley, Matthew Terhark and Zhanna Winchell.

Financial reports through November show the district fell of projected income for the month by approximately $1.6 million. The hospital brought in $4.7 million compared to a budgeted $6.3 million.

On the expenses side, the hospital came in under budget by $1.5 million at $4.3 million for a net income of the month of just over $411,000.

Year to date, the hospital has seen a net income of $5.64 million which is greater than the $3 million of income budgeted for this point in the fiscal year which began June 1.