Present: James Hemshrot, Adam Castle, Tim Headlee, Krystal Kreklow, Matt Stenger, Kurt Crosby, Ahli Kuhlman, Stacy Mueller, Carol Olsen, Duchene, Chalin, Colleen Ryan, Scott Melby

Reflection/Celebration-Olsen-We moved unit 800 to Tamarac. Melby: This is the first of a series of steps taking 9 weeks to decrease census to fit to redwood and spruce. Next is unit 200 to spruce. Evaluating Tamarac before the next step. Kitchen will soon have air conditioning. Physical plant staff are doing a great job.

Standing Agenda Items

Old Business: Management

1. Construction Update: From above. Construction is done. Move to Tamarac, then assess. Next phase is to move female patients to be on willow or Tamarac. Assess to see if moving next week but the plan may move based on how that goes. Physical plant issues that may need fixing. James-water coming in from courtyards in Tamarac. Carol-We did not know about that. We will look into it. Kurt-locks are not done on tarmac yet.  Patients can lock others out right now. Melby: each unit has seclusion units and locks will be installed soon. We are waiting to make sure we have the staff necessary. It will get done just waiting for the locks to arrive.

AFSCME:

1. New Construction: same as above

2. Outside Hospital Coverage: Headlee-TC was going to touch base with the hospital to see how we approach breaks and bathroom etc. Carol-he calls anytime a patient is taken to the hospital about all of this. We had 3 people there recently and it was taken care of. No other issues have come up since. If anyone has questions call the OD.

3. Days Off/Bids Time Frame: Matt-units are on staggered rotation for bid days. When you do this it doesn’t allow for people to take the vacation once it has been lifted off. Problem is that since vacation is only on certain days it doesn’t allow for them to be taken off with time for other staff to put in for it. Carol-they do answer vacation within what is allowed in contract and there are days that they regularly do this than others but we do them based on what we do to satisfy contract. Cates-The 2 month increments  when they release the days when people change days off. Staggering only allows some to get the days but not all at one time. Makes it unworkable. Matt-we are asking for this to be done all at once to remedy this for the plus 4. Melby-is it beneficial to get a small group together and work through it? Matt-yep. Kurt-confusion when contract says posted 14 days and then 28 days. What is the timeframe for vacation granting? Up to 10 days to respond. Is it 14 plus the 10 days? Colleen-They look at vacation days and they have up to 10 days. Mondays before posting is difficult because it is everyone in the program. People should try to get it in as soon as possible. Matt-people are getting them in but they aren’t required to respond before it’s posted. Then it’s denied. We need to look at anything within that posting before it’s posted. Colleen-They don’t have the workforce. My suggestion is to get it in before the posting on Friday.  Krystal-it’s not being looked at until the following week and then it’s too late because it’s been posted due to the “up to ten days.” So we are meeting it within the contract but we are looking at it differently at this point? Kurt-I know you aren’t doing it wrong but just asking to try to do this. Colleen-it’s unreasonable to look at a number. Granting vacation could mean manipulating a schedule. Matt-no reason to have schedulers having split days off. So someone is there even on weekends and it can be taken care of just like other supervisors do. Colleen-they are looking at these. I’m not getting feedback on these. If I can talk those over with Jody and I can see. Stacy-is there a computer program we can look at to help? Melby-we need to have smaller discussion besides this. We have talked about other things and we have one that we will be training with.  Colleen-I don’t know if the program will make a difference. We can talk about this in a smaller group to try to get it worked out.

4. SC/SCL Probation Periods: Ali-The last person did pass probation. Anytime we do think about extending it will be talked about with AFSCME in the future.

New Business

Management:

None at this time

AFSCME:

1. Early Retirement: Headlee-I am getting phone calls from HIMS. I know we don’t know what the budget is going to look like. But they want to emphasize before any layoffs etc. that they would like to talk about early retirement first to prevent anyone from losing their job.

2. 4 Hour assessment/release criteria: Stacy-There was a patient in seclusion and the Dr. said to release and was told criteria was not met. Patient acted like he was sleeping. Supervisor had to call the dr. and said he had to be there at the 4 hour but did not and then backdated his paperwork. Patient did not respond. Dr. said to take out patient. Was told to not physically remove him. Dr. said to just leave him there. Same patient next day nurse practitioner was told to release patient when criteria was not met. Was also late coming in. This mistake continues to happen. Carol-I remember the conversation but I don’t remember saying it was a mistake. We take action with any employee when mistakes are made. Stacy-you said “haven’t you ever made a mistake Stacy” Carol-this isn’t an appropriate time to bring this up. Stacy-it affects us and if the Dr. isn’t coming up… Carol-I heard you and I agree, trust that I am taking action when any employee isn’t following procedure. Trust that I am taking action. This is as much as I can talk about here. Tim-is policy saying it has to be a counselor to open the door? If there is a trust factor if criteria hasn’t been met? They rely on the RNs and they, with our support show its time to release. Carol-policy does not direct which discipline. Tim-so maybe they can be the one to unlock the door. I am looking at it from policy perspective. Carol-everyone needs to have clear documentation of what occurred. What I read is very different from what I have heard. Everyone needs to accurately reflect what happened. Stacy-I wrote very clearly what happened. Time and everything else. I feel like there is separate parameters for us. Carol-when has that occurred that staff was “nailed to the wall”? Matt-There is a person serving 3 day suspension and laudermill right now. Staff are specifically getting reprimanded. Carol-I believe I don’t have to go any further with this. Kurt-release criteria can maybe be looked at again? People were bickering with each other during this supposedly. You can’t let them out if they are sleeping but the way it is set up……anything consistent. He was sleeping and had to keep the door locked. Should sleep be a criteria? They fake sleeping a lot. Should be readdressed. Carol-Every individual we learn what has happened with them. If they fake and assault again. That can be defined as part of their criteria for release. This is why we have clinical conversation on each individual.  All factors have to be taken into consideration. Kurt-Discussion about the DR. He said he knows the patient for the last 6 months. Staff work every day for many hours with these patients. He doesn’t know the client for the rest of the day or time when the DR. is not around. Need to value the staff more when it comes to this kind of stuff. Krystal-Drs are disregarding staff when they have an opinion about what is going on. Carol- I heard disregard from staff involved and not following policy.

3. Rover Position/increasing inversing for campus patrol and CC staff: possible FTE? Carol-Wedid add an FTE and it has been filled. Cates-I heard inversing was going up and required to do rover. Melby-There was one weekend every inverse was in Control Center. it has gone up everywhere in last couple weeks. With one to ones, Increase in staffing because of ICS and the new building. CC and other things such as leaves, sick calls, etc. I have had more in residential than in CC. There was some illness going on in that area and that’s what I know.  I think we have to keep looking at if it will result in more inversing in CC. Carol-with additional coverage and that extra staff it does allow for the rover.  Matt-2 separate areas were covering that area. Added to Campus security. Carol-we will find out more from Dan. He said it has taken care of the situation. Matt-if it’s for campus patrol, it shouldn’t be control center covering. Tim-FTE was supposed to alleviate that. Carol-we will reach out to him. Melby-when we increase a need, it increases over time. We increased by 3 with day and evening shifts. Tim-larger need during the day but it affects the other shifts when we get sick calls. Carol-AFSCME can meet with Dan.

4. Pictures removed off of unit: James-There is abig wall of staff photos at Bartlett. Staff feel like targets about patients looking at the photos. A patient was moving and asked if he could take a staff’s photo with him. Requesting that we have the option to have or not have them up there. Carol-it is very common in treatment areas. Krystal-it’s making staff uncomfortable. They are asking to have them taken down. People are going around taking photos and putting them up. They don’t like them up there. Number one concern to have taken down. James-I just gave Joe a heads up that staff are telling me this so she is aware of it. I know its common practice at grandpa’s nursing home but we have different clientele here.

5. No support for injured staff from facility: Kurt-This rolls in items 6, 7, 8, and 9 together. My understanding it starts at the top and comes down but so many things and staff morale makes us question person centeredness. Workman’s comp isn’t you guys. My experience is a doctor insisted I could come back to work but my problem was running. Policy says you must run. I wasn’t allowed to at one time in the past. It makes a staff feel less than. I called HR and told her the situation. It’s a safety hazard if I can’t run. I called and said I was full duty according to my boss. Response from Dianne was that barb said they will not call then because it’s not their job. I know she doesn’t have to but my Dr. note was wrong. If you get a release, they consider your injury done. In this facility it would be nice if there was something you could do. On 800 there was an incident where patient hurt his head and had MRI and good service. Staff had a bad injury lately and was sent home and had a seizure etc. The more we can do to help our staff get the treatment they need…we aren’t even getting the same quality of care. How can we not get the same care? What does that say to people? The supplemental was crazy. Taking away some of these things that we think are normal.  People are taking other jobs. We have got to come up with something. If we can’t allow a normal life it will be difficult to retain staff. If it doesn’t appear that way…..sometimes people just need to feel like you are trying.  Carol-I can’t do anything about things I don’t know about. Workers comp, you are right. I don’t control it. I do have conversations with them. Is there something together we can do? I don’t know, they deal with everyone that works for Minnesota. I don’t know why they operate the way they do. I am not opposed to doing what we can locally. There are laws and we follow them. It takes joint effort from everyone. Krystal-do you guys have something that goes with staff who are injured to the hospital.  Head injury, etc.  Potential dangers? Carol-There is a packet that gives phone numbers but not what actually happened. It’s up to the Dr in the emergency room. I am very open to improving this because it affects everyone. James-let everyone know the packet is there and to take it with because it’s not happening. Kurt-we have to review rivers edge as a provider. Things that have happened have not been good at all. I wonder if they understand. Melby-when did we miss it James? James-with Paul. Last night I had to tell everyone to get the packets. I can talk to Paul about that. It is in the OD office. Melby-I’ll talk to Paul and remind supervisors.

6. Person centered facility: Kurt-Management tried to get EAP. Those people were offered times during the day. Not on the overnight. Melby-I was working on setting up the next day for night and day staff. I hadn’t heard from the overnight supervisors yet. I needed to hear back from them. When I heard back, we got it on to the SharePoint but it was unfortunately posted on the wrong DCT SharePoint.  If you feel like it is an oversight, give me the benefit of the doubt and ask supervisors. EAP is available, you can contact them. I am working with supervisors to set it up as well. I feel bad that people think I don’t care about them and I do. Because for the time constraint, people think we don’t care about overnights and we do. I called Tim and told him about this to let him know what we were doing and trying to take care of. Carol-they told us about their frustration with us and we were in the process of getting this done.

7. Recent facility incident, help for staff

8. Staff Morale: Carol: I am interested in having a conversation about staff morale because it is in all of our best interest. I own some of it but not all. I can’t make everyone feel good. Very interested in putting this on the agenda for a Monday meeting.

Add-Ons: Kitchen: Tim-I am getting calls around bidding and days off. Falls into congestion of work pool. People that have been here for decades and being pushed out. Although one work area and pool. They are only allowing certain people to put in for these weekends. Getting more and more upset of least senior people getting prime days off. If we can look at that and with one specific staff with 35 years here. I hope we can revisit that especially for her final days here. Set up a meeting with Ali.

LPNs: Cates-Bartlett is short LPNs and there are extras at MSH. They are rotating constantly. Can you just take the least senior staff?  Put them at temporary or permanent reassignment for the time being? Matt-Or just temporary reassign with an end date at 6 months. Colleen-We can look into that. There are currently 6 nursing interviews underway.

Cates-Light duty staff coming in on days off and working lates. Melby-Yep, I looked into this and I am not aware of any overtime. Maybe someone is taking off later or getting here early, but this person is not getting paid for it. I did not see any when I checked. Light duty can’t do overtime.

Matt: Intermittent-how are you giving overtime for subsequent shift. Intermittent aren’t part of bargaining unit. We offer to anyone eligible. But inversing only to bargaining unit.  Offered out by class if they are part of bargaining unit. Matt-if we are anticipating, I am ok with that being good enough. Ali-letter comes out when staff is coming close to the 67 days. If they are near it, the staff is notified and the direct supervisor also. Melby-OD may not have that info. I am trying to find a way to get that on to our overtime list. James-could we add another sheet for intermittent. Melby-we are going through what our options are. How many do we have? Matt-4? Melby- I need to do some more work on that.

Stacy-We had an ICS and called for all available staff. When we call for staff and there is 1 to 1 what happens. Melby-Staff has to stay with that client. Follow the Dr order. It means Only Available Staff. They have to do what they need to keep themselves safe. Defendable upon documentation.

Communication:

Adjourned at 230pm