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WASHINGTON STATE SOCIETY
FOR HEALTHCARE ENGINEERING
BOARD MEETING
Yakima Convention Center
September 20, 2007
MINUTES
PRESENT:
Stephen Grose, State President, Dee Tiedemann, State Secretary/Treasurer, Mike
Kelly, Past President, Russ Kent, P.S. President-Elect, Jim Mead, P.S.
Secretary/Treasurer, Geoff Glass,
Heather Warner, WAM Coordinator, Philip Kercher, EA CHAP Representative, Mike
Chitwood, Ray Tiedemann, Greg Bergstrom, SW President-Elect, Don Rainey, PS Past
President, Tom Pitts, President SW Chapter, Randy Kaiser.
Guest: Dale Woodin, Executive Director, ASHE and Rhonda Cutler.
CALL TO ORDER:
1:20 PM
MINUTES:
August 3, 2007 minutes were not distributed or approved.
NEW BUSINESS:
Board Discussion and Comments Annual Conference
Everyone agreed that the Conference was a success and that they look forward to
the next conference.
General discussion on how the bills of the conference are paid.
Ray Tiedemann: We settle up loose ends and then they bill us for the remainder of
the costs related to the conference.
Stephen Grose: Expressed that for 2009 and 2011 he signed a contract for
80 rooms for the new Holiday Inn that will be built across the street, they gave
us a guaranteed room rate not to exceed $99.00 through 2011. He was not
comfortable re-signing with the Red Lion as they still have not lived up to
their commitments. In Steve’s opinion, we should not support them until they
renovate that location. No one had any issues with this recommendation.
2010 and 2012 conference in Spokane, Steve asked Phil to start negotiating room
rates in the bulk of 80-150 rooms under $100.00, feel comfortable signing for
them.
Philip Kercher: Remarked that he did that. The only hotel to consider is
adjacent to the property and is connected to the convention center, it is the
Doubletree. He has locked in $115.00 which is a good price for the area. It is a
suburban area bigger than Yakima. That rate is locked in for 2010 and 2012.
Stephen Grose: The only thing that we need to discuss is the food items,
cost and selection. A solid accomplishment that we did this year was doing
future planning.
Next item on agenda, each chapter had the responsibility to find an individual
to serve in the next year in the roll of Webmaster, which was the Eastern
Chapter responsibility, Southwest Chapter had Secretary, and the Puget Sound
Chapter had Treasurer.
An update to the Treasurer, Bruce Higgs has agreed to take on the roll as the
WSSHE Accountant, not the WSSHE Treasurer as that is a voting position on the
board and this is a non-voting position. Bruce is working on a fairly big
project right now and unable to break away and wants to be able to take it on
starting January 1, 2008. Jim Mead and I (Steve) had a discussion and we felt it
would be fine; we can take this on because there are a lot of things that the
Treasurer has to do in conjunction with the Secretary. For example, take a look
at storage areas, transferring information and mailbox etc.
Ray Tiedemann: Commented, up until now we have not had an associate
member involved with finances. Curious if that was the boards wishes to have an
associate member in that capacity? In the past it has been a member-member,
nothing against Mr. Higgs, just bringing it up again for consideration.
Stephen Grose: Remarked, that at the past two board meetings we have
discussed that as an organization we struggle to find members who will take a
long term interest in serving in that role. The reason they join the
organization is to be the healthcare engineer and support on the engineering
global level. If we have a member that is interested in taking on that role we
could considered it. In the last 18 months we have requested people to step up
and support this board and at this point we have had no volunteers. Therefore,
at this point my opinion is that we are obligated to make some pretty tough
decisions.
Philip Kercher: Reiterated that the treasurer would be a functionally
supported position by an accountant, they will not be a board member, so we will
have a Secretary/Treasurer?
Stephen Grose: Yes, they will work together; I see it as a checks and
balances.
Stephen Grose: Motion
MOTION: That the organization approve an Associate Member as Accountant
of WSSHE.
Mike Kelly: Amended the proposal, does not think that an Associate Member
has anything to do with it. In essence, we are going to have an agent do the
work. I would like to restate the motion and just have Bruce Higgs take care of
the books as of January 1, 2008.
Stephen Grose: Struck his motion and removed it from the table. Asked
Mike Kelly to restate the motion.
Mike Kelly: Motion to have Bruce Higgs be the WSSHE Accountant effective
January 1, 2008.
Philip Kercher: Second
Geoff Glass: Bruce views this as a temporary situation and that we need
to look at a long term solution.
He is willing to bridge to a permanent solution.
Geoff Glass: Asked what the duties of the Treasurer were as he might
consider volunteering for the position.
Stephen Grose: Collect dues, submit taxes, oversee banking, and work with
the accountant. It includes supporting the money management of around
$100,000.00 a year.
Ray Tiedemann: One job duty is enrolling sponsors of the website and
determining computer software funds.
Geoff Glass: Clarified the he was making sure of the duties because he
wanted to make sure that he was capable of doing as good of a job as Dee has
done.
Stephen Grose: Jim and I have agreed to work on it until January; maybe
the three of us can work on the project together. By January 1, you will have a
system that is flowing or maybe not. At a January Board meeting we can bring it
up for further discussion. We do not want to under estimate the time and energy
that needs to be focused on this position.
Mike Kelly: Withdraw motion and as a board you need to act on the issue
at the next meeting. The President can assign that.
Tom: Yes, assign the responsibility of the accounting to Stephen, Geoff,
and Jim.
Stephen Grose: What did the Southwest Chapter come up with for the
Secretary position?
Comment: Mike Chitwood would take the minutes and publish them.
Stephen Grose: I think that it is within our best interest to continue to
hire individuals to support us in the minute taking so that the secretary of the
organization can focus on the business at hand. That truly represents at the
board level outside of the chapter. This would free up the secretary so that
they can have a non-bias balanced vote that could be one direction or the other.
If you are taking minutes at these meetings you may loose that opportunity. I
like the idea; it is fairly affordable to have a professional support that
operation during a meeting.
Comment: What’s affordable?
Stephen Grose: Around $120.00 which includes the time spent at the board
meeting, the time spent typing up the minutes, emailing, reviewing, and
re-submitting.
Motion: That WSSHE continue to hire professionals to support the minute
taking in conjunction with having a secretary position that oversees that
responsibility for future meetings.
Second: Tom Pitts
Ray Tiedemann: The monetary value you’re discussing is inconsequential
when you are looking at less than $500.00 a year.
Stephen Grose: Anyone have any information on the Webmaster?
Phil Kercher: I discussed with Keith Tomlinson, our current Webmaster for
several years now, about posting the agenda’s etc. and the time frame. His rates
are $60.00 an hour. It does not take him very long to post those minor updates.
My proposal is to utilize him until we have identified someone in the future who
is going to take that role on. That may be our future secretary or not, but in
the mean time he seems to be a good value, he is experienced with the website at
the moment.
Stephen Grose: It would be the responsibility of the secretary to feed
that information through to the state level. All information needs to be fed
through a board member prior to its being posted on the web.
Geoff Glass: We should re-review out sourcing out of the service so there
is continuity, so it takes the burden off the members. I spoke with Cynthia
Buchman and she is involved with a couple of non-profits some considerably
smaller than us. I would like to commit not be involved in the education board
for the Semi-Annual, instead I will dedicate to seriously looking at a long term
contracted service for the basic functions. Not the policy but the mechanics,
running through a stable meticulous contracted relationship. Would like to
report in January a white paper to include a recommendation for a full service
that does not burden the organization.
Stephen Grose: Commented that this is an incredible idea.
Stephen Grose: Agreed to be part of it along with Geoff and Norm McMerrit.
Philip Kercher: We have a lot of stored items at Dee’s home and we need
to do something about transitioning them out of there. What are we going to do
with the hard copy achieved records?
Dee Tiedemann: You have one week, I am leaving the state and I need a
contact person so that we can have a date and a time to deliver them. We will
deliver the items to the individual.
James Mead: Puget Sound has a storage unit and I can store the items
there until we can make a decision.
Tom Pitts: Can store in his office.
James Mead: Stated that he can go over there after hours.
Dee Tiedemann: Cell phone has one year contract left on it. The wireless
phone will be delivered with the other items and has a little over a year on
that contract. 2006 taxes are due Nov. 15, the binder on your Insurance expires
November 27th.
Stephen Grose: We need to give Dee a round of applause for all of her
hard work and support over the past 7 years. She has been absolutely awesome. We
are a better organization for everything that she has done for us.
Ray Tiedemann: Comment that this year was more typical of how the
scholarship works; the committee has supported 6 scholarships. We had 8
applications and two of them were not submitted properly.
Stephen Grose: Ray, with a Senior ASHEE Representative present; would you
give us an overview of our scholarship program.
Ray Tiedemann: Our investment has grown in access to $60,000.00.
MacMackinze Scholarship is targeted to provide educational opportunities for 6
deserving individual’s state wide in the amount of $750.00 per person. The
selection criteria is work health care, are they a member, are they not a
member, are they employed by a facility that is a member? This is a state wide
scholarship anyone from any chapter can apply.
Geoff Glass: MacMackinze’s life was cut short due to cancer.
Dale Woodin: Who judges the criteria for the MacMakinze Scholarship? is
there a special selection committee? Does financial need have anything to do
with it? Or does that even have to be justified?
Ray Tiedemann: No.
Dale Woodin: What are some of the examples of what it has been used for
in the past?
Ray Tiedemann: It has been used for BOC training, Skytrone, and other
training.
Geoff Glass: We are using the yield and not eating the principal of the
investment. As it grows in assets, it is that yield that is distributed to those
6 people.
Dale Woodin: Have you ever had applications for something besides
education? For example, a hospital that says they would love to be a member, but
we would like to have funding for that. Is there anything that was done
specifically for members?
Philip Kercher: It doesn’t happen to often but we are not opposed to
review.
Gregg Bergstrom: Questioned about the mail and where it is to be
delivered to.
Stephen Grose: Dee and I discussed that and she made a strong case about
not putting in a change of address in fear that it will really confuse Ray and
Dee.
Gregg Bergstrom: Could go pick up mail from Dee and Ray as you only 3
miles from them.
Ray Tiedemann: Will make sure mail gets to someone.
Tom Pitts: Taxes?
Ray Tiedemann: 2006 Taxes had an extension
Stephen Grose: Asked if Ray, Jim and Tom will stay on top of taxes? Then
on February 15, we will be submitting taxes which is the Federal Code with
non-profits. I would like to ask that everyone support Tom. Let’s be there for
him.
Steve asked Dale what his vision for strengthening the relationship for the next
year is.
Dale Woodin: Membership, strengthening options to be members of ASSHE and
WHSSE. Try to identify some of the issues that you are dealing with and try and
strengthen from a national perspective. The one that I was giving thought to
ahead of time was membership. We want to look at strengthening the opportunities
for folks that are members of the local chapters, in which this case are WSSHE.
What is the opportunity to get them to be members of ASSHE as well, and
vice/versa? Dale will be sending all a list of all of the Washington State based
ASHEE members. This will identify the people out there that are WSSHE members
but not ASHEE members. We did a rural campaign and we did not know who those
folks were so we worked with HA and went with the qualification of which
hospitals were listed as rural. Now, whether it actually got to the person we
sent it to we don’t know because we did not send it to a name, we sent it to a
title. If there are rural hospitals out there that would like to be ASHEE
members and can not do it because they can not get the funding, if we know who
they are, we can work with them. We did it last year but we do not know how
successful it was because we do not have the names we simply have the hospital
themselves.
Does WSSHE cover most hospitals in the state?
Stephen Grose: 80% active, 87 hospitals of 114 in the state roughly could
be off 7-10 either direction.
Phil Kercher: Not quit 80% I do best by calling directly and explaining
the advantages to ASHEE members.
Dale Woodin: Personal touch is better than sending a letter.
Geoff Glass: It would be interesting to compare the two databases.
Dale Woodin: There has been preliminary discussion of fact finding to
find out what would best support folks, one thing is the consideration of
writing one check for two programs. Do we set up a pilot and try it and identify
if it would work? Comments from folks are that it is harder to get two checks
cut instead of one.
Gregg Bergstrom: WSSHE has a problem in handling the money and making
sure that the money is getting handed out to the chapters. I am concerned about
the complications that it might incur.
Dale Woodin: Commented it would have impacts on the cash flow itself.
Stephen Grose: All dues get sent to central data processing, and then the
check gets sent to the chapter secretaries. The state does not take any of the
dues money. The states revenue generating service is the Annual Conference. The
Semi-Annual is a break even or loss conference and the profit taken from this
period here will be the seed money to get the Semi-Annual off the ground.
Gregg Bergstrom: We have talked about raising our dues and fees for the
conference. We have problems with people not paying dues in January, could we
offer some kind of a discount for early or on time payment?
Stephen Grose: The only issue with that is that the funds for the dues
have nothing to do with funds associated with the conferences. My understanding
is that three chapters have a slush fund, let’s make sure we can articulate
where we have spent the money in the past. We are all challenged with vendors
wanting to sponsor these events that we hold. Traditionally, those events were
all paid for through people’s dues.
James Mead: Data collecting makes it very difficult to keep straight. I
have 221 paid members but I have 300-350 on my roster because I don’t bump them
off if they do not pay dues. This is a source of going back and saying, “How
come you didn’t pay dues?” this year I have about 15 or 20. It takes someone to
go ask for it.
Stephen Grose: We need to stabilize before we start a new system. There
are new people coming into the program. Let’s not change the game until we are
proficient in the current system.
Russell Kent: If a person is not a member is their registration is
higher? Registration depends on the organizational structure.
Stephen Grose: What we might want to do is put together an ADHOC
committee to continue research to grow ASHEE and WSSHE membership. I am looking
toward my ASHEE liaison to look into that.
Philip Kercher: Yes, we need to keep it as a standing agenda item and
also, to grow WSSHE membership. A personal phone call from an active, respectful
member will carry a lot of weight when inviting someone to become a member.
Stephen Grose: Who is going to culminate the information of ASHEE and
WSSHE so we know who we should be targeting if there is opportunity.
Philip Kercher: Our current roster recognizes who is ASHEE and who is
WSSHE. Dee gave me a copy of names and our roster contains many names that have
not paid; that is what I based my percentage calculations on. Our roster
contains a lot of names of people who are not active members, they are still on
our roster list but they have not paid their dues. The only denominator of a
true membership is if you have paid your dues. It is the responsibility of the
secretary of each the three chapters to make sure information is correct. With
board approval I would like to post the roster with password protection on the
website. This would allow members to update information. With board approval I
will continue to address this with our webmaster with possible sort functions.
General Discussion: Some individuals do not want their email posted, nor
do they want emails sent to them. There is an appropriate way to send group
email that only shows the individual who sent the email; one way is to send to a
disclosed recipient list so that the email address does not show up.
Stephen Grose: ASHEE faces the same issue on their website. What we do
about inappropriately accessing information (1) by non-members and (2) by
vendors that want to solicit through that information, it clearly states that if
you are caught violating the code of conduct for this portion of the website you
will be terminated from the organization. We need to do the same thing. We will
spend $5,000.00 in sending out a new member directory. If they updated on
website it would be better and up to date.
Geoff Glass: They have developed a search function on our website
vendors.
Philip Kercher: Do you want me to assemble information and bring a
proposal to our January meeting? Should we just proceed ahead based on a
password protection access to the roster?
Geoff Glass: Yes, proceed; keep the board members up-to-date with any
major developments. Keep people informed via email. Vote by email instead of
waiting.
Gregg Bergstrom: Our board does not have each others email addresses.
Stephen Grose: Asked that the sign-in sheet be prepared in Excel and
presented with the next set of minutes.
James Mead: Will provide Phil with his rosters.
Stephen Grose: We will have the current board members but we will have
new officers; when you get the minutes you will have them and be able to compare
with the new board members. Adjust it and re-send it out.
Philip Kercher: Will work with the current information. I will do emails
to each chapter and request the most current rosters. I will proceed with Keith
and our discussion with the website and the online roster.
I would like to quickly review who is on our 2008 board. I think there are gaps
with official positions.
2008 Board Members
Tom Pitts-President
Stephen Grose-Past President
No President Elect
No Secretary/Treasurer
Eastern Area
Brad Jones-President
Randy-Secretary/Treasurer
No President Elect
Puget Sound Area
Russ-President Elect
Mike Dodson-Past President
Jim Secretary/Treasurer
Southwest
Gregg Glass-President
No President Elect
Mike Secretary/Treasurer
Philip Kercher: Transfer of Presidency today and chapter’s at the end of
the year.
Southwest and Eastern need to have a President-Elect for 2008 established in
both groups those are the official offices that need to be filled. President and
the Secretary/Treasurer 2008 positions open at this time.
State Officers
President-Tom PItts
Jim, Geoff, Stephen will cover for Treasurer.
Heather Warner: How long is the WHAM coordinator position elected? This
position could use some assistance.
James Mead: Heather is the person that sits on the board so everything
needs to go through you. You can have a WHAM assistant and they could take your
place if you decide to move on.
Philip Kercher: Each chapter should have a WHAM assistant, which would be
Jim, Ron, and Gary Welch.
Geoff Glass: We just finished our Annual Conference and it is not too
early to start getting the education committee ready for the Semi-Annual
Conference. Within the next month we need to have a group set up.
Member Discussion: The President usually takes a bigger lead in putting
together the Semi-Annual agenda, Annual is out to the Education Chair. The
Semi-Annual the President has two or three others providing support.
Philip Kercher: You can not wait until February to set up. You want to do
it right after Christmas or the first of the year. Next Board Meeting is Friday,
Feb 15th 11:30 at the Rodeo City BBQ. The focus will be on education.
ADJOURNMENT
2:45 p.m.
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