After much wrangling, the Central Peninsula General Hospital Inc. Board of Directors voted to establish the Soldotna hospital as a tobacco-free campus.
Voting 8-2 in favor of the resolution, the hospital board's directors first questioned whether smoking and other tobacco use should be banned both inside and outside hospital buildings, whether the ban should apply to patients as well as staff members and, if prohibited, how such an edict would be enforced.
Language of the resolution specified a number of reasons behind the proposal, including endorsements of a tobacco-free campus by the Patient Advisory Committee, the CPGH medical staff and the local chapter of the Alaska Nurses Association.
The resolution also stated, "CPGH is committed to providing healthy lifestyle role modeling in the community," and said employees who are tobacco users cost CPGH an average of $3,200 per week in non-productive time.
During their discussion, board members agreed that the goal of the resolution was not to punish employees or patients who smoke, but to encourage healthy choices among them, offering smoking cessation classes and counseling.
Although the board's resolution did not outline specifics about whether the present smoke shack outside the hospital would be demolished or whether patients would continue to be allowed to smoke in personal vehicles parked in the hospital parking lot, the board threw its support to the hospital administration's "Tobacco Free Campus Guidelines Policy."
In other board action Thursday evening, the hospital's $6.7 million capital budget and its operating budget for fiscal year 2006 were adopted.
Included in the capital budget is $3.76 million to be paid as debt service for the hospital expansion. During his Chief Executive Officer report, David Gilbreath said the project is going "extremely well," and said phase 3, the remodel of the existing building, is now in design.
The capital budget also calls for replacing the hospital's radiographic room at a cost of $634,999, which Gilbreath said was a pressing need.
"Our existing radiographic room is on its last leg," Gilbreath said.
Imaging equipment in the room has been replaced repeatedly and parts are no longer being manufactured for the outdated equipment. The new room will have modern, digital equipment.
Gilbreath said add-ons in the hospital's magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facility "will allow better images of the shoulder as well as other extremities, and will offer greater patient comfort."
The MRI accessory is budgeted at $30,000.
Another high-priority item in the capital budget is an 8-terabyte spinning disc that will allow for a large, long-term computer archive of patient images and demographic information. The price tag on the disc is $124,099.
The approved operating budget calls for an operating margin of 2.6 percent and sets salaries and benefits at 56 percent of the hospital's net revenue during the next 12 months.
"We're looking at a salary budget of $21.5 million," said Mike Haggerty, interim chief financial officer.
He said the budget anticipates a salary increase averaging about 3.5 percent overall, and said the increase would come in November.
The operating budget is based on an anticipated net income of $4.6 million, which is 8.82 percent higher than the $4.2 million projected for fiscal year 2005.
The board also presented a plaque to Dr. Curt Buchholz, outgoing chief of staff, who has served in that capacity since July 2004.
"If this medical staff didn't want to move toward quality, nothing would have happened," Buchholz said in accepting the honor.
"I played only a small role in keeping the train on track," he said.
The medical chief of staff for the coming year will be Dr. Todd Boling.
