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Keith Olson both provided the invocation and was our song leader. We had Fergus High School students Tyler Hauge, Tommy Bowman and Angelique Lindgren, introduced by Tommy's mother Jean, who performed a snip-it from "Leading Ladies," the school's spring play. Dean Monke introduced our Student Athletes, both seniors from Hillcrest. Jonathan Steinbach is involved in track and field, as well as choir, and will be going to the North Dakota State College of Science to be an auto technician. Page Schultz, from Saskatchewan, has been involved in basketball and choir and is the track manager, as well as her class president. She plans to attend M State next year, with her father accepting a call in Breckenridge. Randy Kempfer contributed a scooter buck from Mike Smith and then bragged that his office successfully completed a computer software program switch, adding on a sad note that the family dog was to be put down the next day. Dave Johnson bragged about the assistance of Stan Carignan, Ryan Welle and his son Austin, to get the spring highway clean-up completed, noting that there was probably as much trash (12 to 15 bags) to pick up as when this effort first started twelve (?) years ago; Dave was out picking up three days in a row for Rotary and one other organization and thought maybe that might be a bit too much for someone his age. Thanks Dave for leading this effort for so many years! Dean Monke reported that daughter Hannah is having a big year, graduating from UMN, being accepted at Luther Seminary and getting married in June. Stan Carignan was looking forward to the women's build for Habitat for Humanity scheduled for the weekend and reported Habitat hired Paul Shol on a part-time, temporary basis. Mary Pettit also reported on a daughter graduating and on Keller Williams Realty's "Renew, Energize & Donate" campaign, soliciting contributions to the Food Shelf at Service Food and Larry's in Battle Lake the next day. Randy Kempfer recruited Stan Carignan and Lois Josefson to go to OLV after the meeting to hand out Josh the Otter books, reminding us that the volunteers signed-up to do the same thing at McKinley this coming week should be ready to go. Katie Johnson introduced Kyle Richards, the CEO at Lake Region Healthcare, who came to Fergus about a year ago. Kyle and his wife, Tammy (a music teacher), have an eighth grade boy and a fifth grade girl, and two Newfoundland dogs. Kyle grew up in Pierre, South Dakota, and reported he has a grandmother who will be turning 106 this coming week. His job preceding this one was in Rapid City where he was the chief operating officer for a health network that had six different facilities around the Rapid City area. One of the functions he performed while in Rapid City was coordinating his employer's staffing of Sturgis during the annual motorcycle rally; normally the clinic there saw 300+ persons a month, but during the festival's 75th Anniversary, they treated over 700 in a one week period. A lot of crazy things happen during the rally and Kyle recalled when a patient was asked where he was from, he responded, "Earth man, earth," and when then asked to narrow it down, said "the forest and the trees." Kyle, while growing up, thought about becoming a lawyer but a summer job in a law library convinced him otherwise. He then decided to go into health care, stating that was because he was injured a lot when he was young. At Lake Region, going forward, he talked about repurposing the first floor of the hospital, including moving occupational therapy, speech and pediatric therapy up one floor, expanding physical therapy's floor space and adding four sleep study rooms with their own bathrooms. The acute inpatient rehab unit is being closed down because the number of patients has steadily declined, with beds having to be used by someone needing at least three hours of rehab a day. A complete rehabbing of the intensive care unit was completed mid-May, two primary care providers have been relocated to give patients more access to primary care services, and eight new providers have or will come in this year: two new pediatricians, a hospitalist, a emergency department physician and four advanced practice providers (nurse practitioners and nurse assistants). Lake Region is still recruiting five to ten more physicians or advance practice providers. On-going major projects include completing the conversion to electronic health records, implementing both a new internal finance software program and the "340B" legislation that addresses drug discount pricing for healthcare facilities (this past year drug costs for the cancer center went up over one million dollars). The strategic plan is being updated, and there is probably a complete update of the hospital side coming in the future at a cost of $40 to $50 million. For the third year in a row Lake Region has been ranked in the top 100 rural and community hospitals in the United States. The Cancer Center is the only site in Minnesota accredited by the American College of Radiation Oncology and the only one outside the Twin Cities participating in the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative. Kyle also stated that the "Wheel of Wellness" program has been a great success. |
