AFSCME Labor Management MSH

May 17th, 2018

Administration Building

Attendance: Adam Castle, Matt Stenger, Crystal Kreklow, Ryan Cates, Steve Wilking, Kurt Crosby, Marvin Sullivan, Emilio Florez, Patrick Patterson, Melissa Gryschek, Carol Olsen, Lisa Vanderveen, Tudy Fowler, Brian Wills, Dan Sequist

Reflection/Celebration: Carol-Physical plant doing the moves are so professional and accommodating. Matt-We got resolution for hickory door. They will put card readers on the door so thank you. Cates-we still haven’t gotten our chairs in the afscme office. Carol-Ill just wheel over my chair, just kidding. I’ll call tom kohlstad after the meeting.

Standing Agenda Items:

1. Osha Information-Handout for Work Related injuries and Illnesses. Carol-we have had 2 months where osha reportable are down. Staff are doing a great job at staying safe, we don’t want to see any injuries. Matt-1 reportable, 3 non reportables.
2. 2.      Overtime Information-Handouts provided by Patrick Petterson

 Old Business

Management

1. 1.      Supervisor Rounding-Carol-Purpose is only time they see supervisors is only in time of eval or other issues. We have started this where we meet face to face with supervisors about how are things going? Anyone you would like to recognize. This will be monthly. I was asked if its going into files. No, its face to face with your supervisor about any issues. Good and bad. Melissa-this goes hand in hand with even supervisors getting more comfortable and becoming what we do and foster better relationships. Opportunity to ask questions.
2. 2.      Staff Forums MSH 5/23 and Nursing Home 6/1-Carol-Will be about construction and harassment that has come from governor’s office. We have had instances of it but we need to bring to our attention things that aren’t right.

AFSCME

1. 1.      Unit Minimums not being maintained-Cates-We talked about this last month and its still happening. They should still be meeting unit minimums. Carol-we don’t have minimums, we have a “compliment”. On any given shift they look at acuity, not a minimum. Scott would be better able to talk about this at next week’s check in.

New Business

Management

1. Nicollet County’s role with VA reports-Carol-Person who was doing follow up with VA’s has retired. Supervisor looked through the statutes and realized he wasn’t following policy the right way. Statute has option to report internally or externally. There will be a number that goes to Mark. That is a central location, if they see as emergent, they will call county it comes from. They will ensure person is safe. Sometimes eyes on, call out here and talk to staff. You can share health information. Only 3 people in Nicollet County. I will give them the SOD phone number. They take calls from patients a lot and sometimes staff. They may come onto campus for an eyes on and need to be escorted to see the patient.

AFSCME

1. 1.      Fire Watch: We need to have the ability for all staff qualified and capable to use this avenue to get extra hours that are available to us per contract-Kurt-Brian said there are different routes and duties. I talked to 3 people and they said it always the same. How long is this going to happen for? Carol-with construction, as they prepare for demolition. They have disconnected water etc. when that is demolished, we can discontinue fire watch. Probably June.  Kurt-can we get this open for others to cover. Carol-trying to use as many light duty staff as we can. I don’t know. Kurt-if we can find evidence can we open up for others to sign up? Matt-only control center is covering, if we get into inversing we would like to see it opened up to other units. Carol-I understood there is some training involved but I don’t know. Kurt-You just walk through and make sure there isn’t a fire. Melissa-we can figure it out. Carol-guessing middle of June.
2. 2.      MSH Coverage in FNH for patient: We believe this to be a contractual violation to schedule staff to a work area that is not in their designated work area. The pt. that is at FNH is not in MSH custody. That pt. is not in the MSH work area. Staff are not allowed to work in areas that are not our spot, so why are we being forced to? Cates-Our staff over there are uncomfortable. The nursing home staff don’t want to give bathroom breaks. Our staff don’t feel comfortable sitting the room with the patient. Kurt-She was BHIS over to nursing home so that isn’t our patient. Marvin-last month we had a conversation about accessing health information about patients who aren’t ours. Melissa-It comes down to if you have a business need to access that information. Marvin-I think that could be stretched if you are not a staff for that patient. Carol-if you are providing one to one you are staff. Melissa-I understand. From our perspective, we have had a lot of experience with this and the analysis is if you are providing care, you have a business reason to access that information. Had people from transition setting, we shared MSH staff to work with them. Technically the patient is part of something else but being DHS, you have a business right to access that information. Marvin-She is a nursing home patient, she should be staffed by a nursing home staff. Kurt-according to doctor’s order, we have to monitor from in the room when she is not our patient so we have to ask you contractually if you have a right to put us over there? Steve-how do you determine the coverage over there? Some have covered 3 days in a row, its draining. You can’t leave and decompress. Carol-I’m disappointed they won’t help cover bathroom breaks. Melissa-I would hope the staff would tell you where break rooms and other things are. Carol-I get it, that’s something we can take back to the nursing home. We need to help each other out. I can talk to sod and scheduling about them rotating through different staff. Crystal-if she is forensic nursing patient, she be covered by their staff. Carol-she is coming back to MSH. Crystal-well until that happens, we need to cover by their staff. Carol-she is a very complicated patient and due to her history we thought we would do what is best for her situation if she becomes assaultive. We knew she would come back after rehab. Kurt-We come to impasses that this is the contract. Does the contract say that we can be forced to work out of our work area? If its negotiated, we shouldn’t be sent. Melissa-We do have the ability to temporary reassign. We can pick anyone we want. I am not saying we will do that but we can contractually. Then it would be A person covering with no rotating through. Kind of like when you worked 800 but you come in and have to work 200. I appreciate the concern but we felt the need was necessary. Its unique. Carol-Plans to bring her back next week.
3. 3.      Information on radio pricing and also number of radios with and without screens. Radios and functionality: The roll out of the radios is in question. The continued inherent danger staff are put in due to poor planning and foresight has staff very upset and fearing for their safety. Brian-I don’t have the pricing. 500 ordered. 100 have screens. I can work on getting pricing. Kurt-Everyone has been working hard to fix this but why were they put out in this fashion.  Issues we are having must not have been present when the supervisors had this training. People focused on user error. We got directive that you are supposed to wear higher and find a spot on the mic. When we had a screen we could look and find the location. Suggestion was if there would be at least one screen radio on each unit for the A team member. Things to be done to improve these things. Switching channels for different places doesn’t work. Matt-MSOP did this when I worked there and they got rid of it. Kurt-There have been breakdowns during ICS’s where system goes completely down. These don’t work and someone will get hurt. Matt-On hickory we had staff on street and he radioed us that there was a client on his way back to the unit. We did not hear anything but only master control responded “we hear you loud and clear” Kurt-When we come in we do radio checks. Many times it’s garbled when master responds. It breaks down the system and they have to restart the radio system because it can’t handle all of the traffic. Wills-didn’t go as planned but there was a lot of testing done beforehand but was done on small scale. Realized that in that small testing in controlled situation. A lot of the things as problems weren’t able to be identified. We did radio checks on all of them and came through perfect but next day there were a lot of issues. We have been in contract with Motorola and they have had similar cases and are looking into those issues. Channels are our own design. Meeting with CRP next week about that. Anything this size some things don’t work as expected. Radio numbers on displays, we were used to 4 digits. Now its 8 so numbering had to be redone. Still had transition period. We tried to keep them similar as we could. When we look originally, we looked at functionality of radios. Two different versions we went with display features to maybe get rid of cell phones on campus. A lot of features. Wasn’t just simple cost factor. Gotten a lot better information from the user about which radios, situation, etc. so we can narrow down. An ICS recently had error in Master that caught halfway through so they didn’t hear the request. We are documenting and getting to the vendor. Kurt-mic aren’t unidirectional. Look into multidirectional instead because its very important. In future can we try to minimize the use of new things to a small area before we put to use program wide. Carol-there was a lot of review done to find the right radios for us. We worked for company that rolls these out at big institutions. We put a lot of thought into this. Atlas, we did MSH because we wanted to do in big program that will test the program so we can find the issues so Jodi can work with them while it’s occurring. Dan-there was no half roll out because they take the repeater down and replace. We had to replace one with the other. Years of planning it. Brian-We asked about a staged rollout but you can’t have 2 running at same time to due to FCC licensing. Maybe we could have asked more questions but we had the radios forever. Some things maybe got lost in those delays but we can do our best to work through them. Crystal-why don’t we have a safety net because we know there are safety concerns with this right now until the bugs are worked out. Brian-back up plan was direct radio to radio transmission. We are still looking into these. Its not the best but be careful. Use telephones too. Make everyone aware of what is going on. We have had successful ICS that involved multiple groups so its getting better. We don’t have a secondary radio. Matt-fallback is 2 way but it’s so large that on opposite ends it may not work. Carol-intercoms work too so that could be a back up as well. Emilio-we started with radio system but never had official training. Is someone going to come in? Staff are asking. Brian-there was a training module in there that has sign off on it. Emilio-first I have heard of it. Dan-we asked staff to work with it but still gets you familiar with it for quite a while. Emilio-we are having issues with it. Hight acuity unit on different channel. What kind of delay are we looking at? It was minutes before Frasier was able to respond. SOD made it to the unit before responders did. What kinds of precautions are we taking for these staff. Apparently they aren’t getting patched over when MSH has an ICS and then takes a long time to respond. In the meantime, it would make more sense to have them on the same channel as MSH. Matt-since hickory is in the building, they should be on the same channel. I could see community site, I can see leaving them on separate. Brian-we can talk to CRP about that but there will be others like maintenance on different channels. There shouldn’t be a delay in the end when its functioning. Carol-There will be a discussion on that. Dan-We tried to organize these in a way that would make sense but that doesn’t mean it can’t be adjusted. We talk about ICS protocols as well, we are supposed to go through all of the steps. When we purchased radios it was by organizational needs, not because of some of our present habits. Emilio-The delay is a huge issue with how long it takes for it to get across to all of the units. Dan-I agree, and I think that will be fixed. Kurt-I disagree with Dan. I was on 800. Radios were clicking and the only reason we saw where it was is because what we saw on that screen. Every second counts.  Those screen really do help. We shouldn’t take away a tool that helped me and coworkers. Steve-When we are in a high stress situation, things aren’t pretty. Usually we only get location out. I have responded and initiated by only seeing information by radio number. We get this unspoken rule that if you get numerous clicks, you just respond. The OD has called and asked how I knew where it was. Those screens are important. Dan-I understand you are used to them but it only shows where it was signed out from. I was on one of the first man downs and I get we are used to it but it can steer us wrong as well. Brian-we have done quite a few drills. Dan-the live mic still goes to that live mic and alert tones. Tom has done testing and I don’t have the numbers. Marvin-hickory is better to use man down button instead of radioing? Basically eliminating patch time. It’s the patch that’s the lag time. Brian-when master control calls and says where they are, its an all call feature. Everybody hears it if everything is functioning properly. Marvin-when man down is depressed, it’s communicated amongst all radios. Dan-that’s not always true. Marvin-is transition in Bartlett on the same channel? Will the same issues happen because they happen on hickory? Carol-that will be part of the communication. Dan-that why they go to MSH response crew. Kurt-If we can get a formal response to put in the minutes so its not misinterpreted. It takes no sense to wait 10 seconds to that protocol is followed. Dan-I don’t know where 10 second thing is coming from. Kurt-I mean with radio display it comes across 10 seconds earlier. That is a long ways. The staff are gonna want you to justify why this is happening and we aren’t getting these radios. Dan-This is about properly doing it. I’m talking about every time we can follow this protocol. Its not about percentages, its about consistency to use the universal protocol. Kurt-if there are ways to make it safer, we would like to do that. Cates-has it been helpful to write reports when there are issues? Dan-Yes, very helpful. We are seeing them from all over. I have been talking about a certain issue with a radio. If its radio specific, we need to know. Crystal-when we talked about OSHA response, staff took this as operator error excuse. Matt-its taught to instructors to talk to new staff about it being operator error. Emilio-we took the instructor training and that the radios are at 100 percent operational and that when there are issues, its due to operator error. I know there are operator errors but there are a lot of other issues like computer freezing up. Brian-some of our initial errors we brought up to the vendor, they would ask questions like that with the microphone placement. Some staff had mics on belts and saying that can’t hear it. Some of that feedback was maybe talked about in the training. As we progressed through that, now we are finding more cases with Motorola. Their response was if we are using it right. That’s not fully true and we are getting that info back to them. Here are the details of the problem and troubleshooting. Its important to bring to the training though too. Emilio-yeah, but the thing is that these radios don’t compare to armor system working where you could have the radio low and still hear them and speak into them. They are just not transmitting the same so people may be having trouble with adapting. Dan-I was at the training and my take was that trainers are supposed to really reinforce how to speak into the mic and where to wear them. This is the system we have, you have to clip them up high. I hear some of the same reverb issues with both. Dan-we are aware there are console issues too. Cates-wear it on shoulder like we are supposed to but now your hand covers the hole. Dan-my take on the training was let’s show everyone the right way because the old right way doesn’t work anymore.
4. Vocational Department Issues: Cates-Meeting with directors of that program to discuss some of the issues. Matt-Some feel their supervisor isn’t getting information which is making their job harder. We have a lot to go through. Crystal-we can try to get an agenda. Melissa-it won’t be hard for us. Cates-it will be after Monday.
5. 5.      July Meet and Confer: Cates-Can we reschedule. Melissa-we were looking at the following Thursdays but there are conflicts. We can look at not a Thursday or cancel and pick up in august. Carol-we can bring up in June again.
6. 6.      Atlas-Staff cannot see the date and time their schedules are changed: Cates-I brought this up in check in. Jodi said there is nothing they can do about it. We can’t be sure contract is followed. Marvin-same goes for vacation as well. Melissa-I totally get it. Carol-So they aren’t being timed and dated. Melissa-this isn’t the only place we are hearing it. Best solution so far is screenshotting when its posted. Crystal-we need to have the ability to see this and track it. Emails are nice but only if they are sent. Steve-Staff aren’t even notified. Melissa-I understand, I don’t have a good suggestion but it is coming up and there are conversations. Kurt-People called for overtime but miss the call and then call to get signed up again for the next one. Supervisors don’t have the option to resign staff up. Don’t have ability to sign up passed the posted schedule. If you are off for that month, there is no way to sign up.
7. 7.      Phone App-Carol-I talked to Jodi. After full roll out and work through the issues then we will start the conversation about the app and the cost. Marvin-Question on day of vacation are we following what atlas puts out? Atlas defines differently. Patrick-No resolution yet. Matt-If atlas is correct…

ADDITIONS:

1. 1.      Kurt- Shuffling of people and extra staff brought on. Recently very short on overnights. Summer coming and brought up people leaving on SNV. When giving short notice its because you have intermittents scheduled. If intermittents don’t show up this summer, where will we be? Can you guys look at it again? Carol-I will talk to Scott about that.

Adjourned at 2:10pm