Healthcare Facilities Management Society of New Jersey, Inc.
Serving Healthcare Since 1949
*** General Membership Meeting***
Minutes to the Meeting of
April 17, 2008
President John DiGirolomo, CHFM, SASHE called the meeting to order on Thursday, January 17, 2008, at the Galloping Hill Inn, Union, New Jersey, commencing at 6:08 p.m. and lead everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance. Self-introductions were made by all in attendance.
John DiGirolomo CHFM, SASHE introduced representatives of the Susan G. Komen cancer research foundation who invited everyone in attendance to join them on May 4th in Branch Brook Park in Essex County in a walk to raise money for breast cancer research.
SPONSOR
The sponsor for this evening’s meeting was TSB Associates
EDUCATIONAL SESSION TOPIC
The educational session was presented by Mr. Mike Yarnell of OSHA.
The topic of discussion was “The role of Healthcare Facilities in Emergency Response”, an in-depth look at planning, equipping and training the staff of any type of healthcare facility for an emergency, using the "All Hazards" approach, Emergency response and incident command and specifying common-sense roles the health care industry plays. Providing fundamental considerations and decision logic to prepare for these roles. There was a Power Point Presentation with a question and answer session following.
President John DiGirolomo, CHFM, SASHE thanked Mr.Yarnell and representatives of TSB Associates
DINNER BREAK.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
John DiGirolomo CHFM, SASHE began his report by asking everyone to join him in a long over due recognition of past golf committee chair Roger Ennis. The membership joined together in a standing ovation as John presented Roger with a gold watch in recognition for the years of successful golf outings Roger had arranged.
John then explained to the membership that he was still in the process of requesting George Mills of the Joint Commission to join us as part of the society’s education day and urged the membership to make every effort to take part in this event.
PRESIDENT-ELECT’S REPORT
Ben DiFranco, CHFM, SASHE announced that April’s education presenter would be Mr. Tony Monaco of the New Jersey Department of Health.
Ben then informed the group that ASHE’s regional conference was coming up in July and it was being held in Washington DC, Ben strongly suggested anyone capable of attending make every effort as it’s full of terrific education topics and vendor information. Ben also asked anyone not currently an ASHE member to consider joining our parent organization.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Bill Anderson, CHFM, FASHE presented the following synapses of the 2008 budget:
Beginning Balance: $69,224.53
Disbursements: $6,036.11
Deposits: $8,375.00
Ending Balance: $72,046.58
The organization is solvent.
Bill also informed the membership that the proposed 2008 operating budget has been submitted to the executive committee.
SECRETARYS REPORT
Edward Fay informed the committee that he joined members of 7 or 8 healthcare facilities who met in Princeton at the New Jersey Hospital Association on Friday April 11th included in the meeting were members of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, PSE&G and others.
The meeting was arranged to discuss power reliability following last summers outages in North Jersey which lasted for days affecting many facilities. At the conclusion of the meeting the NJHA agreed to provide addresses to all of New Jersey’s Hospitals to allow the BPU to generate a report card on healthcare facilities power source reliability.
ADVOCACY
Robert Roop urged the membership to consider commenting on the recent proposed changes to emergency preparedness that are open to public comment until April 21st.
There was also a general reminder to the group that under the new requirements, the need was “to access your ability to maintain services for 96 continuous hours without assistance” as this requirements was often being misunderstood and incorrectly interrupted as having to maintain constant staffing and inventories at all times to operate for 96 hours.
Robert asked everyone to please request “clarification” to the proposed changes from the Joint Commission not just to complain about the requirements, asking them to describe what the actual purpose of the changes are meant to solve, from that you can more effectively detail what the impact the changes will have on your facility.
EAB
Hank Schurman explained to the members that at the last Engineering Advisory Board meeting at the NJHA a training seminar was being organized for September / October 2008 focusing on hurricane preparedness. A discussion was also had regarding seal requirements for stationary engineers as well as proposed training for developing future healthcare engineers.
GOLF OUTTING
Amy DiPaolo reminded everyone that this years golf outing would once again be held at Fox Hollow Country Club on Tuesday June 3rd 2008.
NEWSLETTER
No Report.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
No Report.
MEMBERSHIP
Peter Applemann presented 1 new regular members for consideration;
á Jerry Comi – Christ Hospital Director of Safety & Security
Voted in unanimously
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Frank Keller informed everyone that he was optimistic that he would be able to schedule within the next 30 days our next social justice event. Frank has been actively working towards setting up a date with an organization named Tooling Around The Town, to assist a 49 year old man who is recovering from 2 strokes and before being released from therapy requires improvements to his home to make it ADA compliant
WEBSITE
No Report.
NJDOHSS UPDATES
No Report
NFPA UPDATES
No Report
JOINT COMMISSION UPDATES
John DiGirolomo, CHFM, SASHE again urged the membership to comment on the proposed Emergency Preparedness changes.
Ben DiFranco, CHFM, SAHE informed everyone that his facility was visited by the Joint Commission on April 1st, the only area around the environment of care that was brought up was the hospitals current status of compliance with emergency preparedness. Ben explained that an area of attention focused on the hospitals need to have “written” agreements in place with various vendors who may provide services or products during a disaster, a great deal of time was spend on this area.
OLD BUSINESS
No “Old Business” was discussed.
NEW BUSINESS
No “New Business” was discussed
ASHE
Ben DiFranco, CHFM SASHE reminded the members that there are applications to ASHE at every meeting and urged all members to enroll in ASHE.
GOOD OF THE ORDER
Jim Corueil informed everyone that during a recent 2 day survey by the Department of Environmental Protection he was told of new standards to for boiler maintenance that may be going in to effect, dependant on the BTU’s electronic controls can be installed to meet this requirement.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:38 P.M.