By Rick Harvey

Eureka Springs Times-Echo

It was gnat your typical meeting.

The monthly session of the Eureka Springs Hospital Commission held Monday, July 21, in the basement of The Auditorium was a unique affair, lasting just under 11 minutes.

The reason? Gnats. Commissioners were told before the meeting got started that it would be an abbreviated session because of “pest control” issues.

“OK, we’re gonna run through today’s meeting rather quickly because we have a bit of a pest control issue down here in The Auditorium basement,” it was announced. “So we’re going to run through as quickly as we can.”

Five commissioners were present and stood around the meeting tables the entire meeting, as did hospital interim CEO Jodi Edmondson and Cynthia Asbury, the hospital’s chief financial officer.

Velvet Shoults, who was introduced early in the meeting as the hospital’s new clinical director, sat on a table for the duration of the meeting.

“Welcome to the Eureka Springs Hospital Commission meeting … that will hopefully last about five minutes,” commission chair Sandy Martin said.

That goal wasn’t quite met, with a little discussion sprinkled around various topics.

After Martin welcomed Willie Daniels, who was recently approved by the city council as a new commissioner, the commission approved consolidating some bank accounts.

“Cynthia and Jodi and I met on a financial meeting and we discovered some miscellaneous accounts that we really don’t need, but we do need a vote to consolidate them,” Martin said. “There are four total: the clinic checking account, the commission checking account, and two miscellaneous accounts that we just got notice for.

“None of those have over $2,000 in them. Most of them have like, one has $60, one has $300, but we really don’t need them, so we need a vote to consolidate or to close those accounts and to move … the commission checking would go into the commission money market. The other three of them would go into the hospital operations account.”

The commission approved the accounts consolidation 6-0 with vice chair Brian Beyler and commissioner Vivian Smith joining via phone.

Shoults’ new role

During a brief CEO report, Edmondson welcomed Shoults as the hospital’s new “clinical executive director,” Martin confirmed Shoults’ new responsibilities as part of a new position on Tuesday, July 22. Martin said Lana Mills, who is listed on the hospital website as the facility’s Director of Nursing and Clinical Services, will report to Shoults.

“That’s a new position,” Martin said regarding Shoults’ new title. “Lana stays in place and reports to Velvet.”

‘Largest month’ as REH

Asbury’s CFO report informed commissioners that the hospital had a “pretty good month” in June with the hospital getting “over $930,000 in billable revenue.”

Going over the balance sheet, Asbury noted an “adjustment journal entry reflecting … to update our cash and cash equivalents.”

“It was an entry that we identified when we started pulling stuff for Forvis for our audit,” Asbury said. “But, that now has been, we got the approval to go ahead and make that adjustment journal entry. It was because some of the GLs were routed to an asset account when they should not have been. And that just came from the buildout of the systems and conversions, but it was just one account. So, that’s updated.”

Martin stressed the significance of the billable revenue for June.

“That’s the largest month since we’ve converted to a [Rural Emergency Hospital],” Martin said. “Fantastic.”

Discrepancy explained

Martin also told commissioners that the recent adjustment that Asbury reported helps explain the recent question by members of city council about numbers not matching in regard to balance sheets and bank statements.

“And the adjustment, one of [council’s] questions, as you know, we weren’t doing balance statements after February 2024, intentionally, because of the Cerner conversion to Oracle, plus all the issues we were having with Oracle, which is what caused this,” Martin said. “A wrong GL entry put the balance sheet out of step with the cash sheet, bank balance. Bank balance is reconciled every day, just about, and Cynthia can’t get out of it until she reconciles it. So, that was adjusted on this. That answers the question of the difference of the May 31st, $6 million in cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet versus the cash of $5.5 million, and $1.3 million, whatever, difference it is in that commission account leaves about, what do we figure, $4,700?”

Asbury responded: “Yeah, a little over $4,000 in the unreconciled, but we will have, I mean again that’s why the balance sheet wasn’t … we were waiting on Forvis to do the final reconciliation from an audit …”

Clinical report

Shoults reported that she and Asbury have recently worked through the inventory in the clinic, dropping it down “by about 60 percent.”

“We’ve gone from two storerooms actually down to just one,” Shoults said, adding that needed items are also being stocked.

“… Crutches, knee braces, walker boots, the whole selection, anything we would need,” she said. “Prior, we didn’t have any of that in the ER.”

Shoults reported that the state recently sent the hospital a letter accepting “our corrective action plan” and confirming the trauma designation.

“They’ll see us in June 2026 to review some charts,” she said.

Martin said she recently got a tour of the hospital and came away impressed with how well equipped the facility is compared to hospitals across the area.

“When I took the tour … Velvet pointed out that our emergency room is equally, if not better equipped, than any other emergency room in Northwest Arkansas,” Martin said. “She should know. She’s worked them and set them up.

“So, we are state of the art, and what they’ve invested in it has been fantastic. New heart monitors and everything else.”

Van Update

Martin reported she was about to finish submitting the information needed to apply for a state grant to help purchase a mobile response van for the hospital.

“Then we hold our breath until July 31,” she said. “That’s the final date. We probably won’t know anything until the end of August or early September.”

Maloney: Aud issue resolved

Mike Maloney, director of the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission, which manages The Aud, confirmed the gnat issue on Tuesday, July 22, saying it was quickly resolved.

“The issue was gnats,” Maloney said in an email. “… We immediately contacted an exterminator and [Tuesday] morning the gym space was treated. I had also sprayed [Monday] afternoon with a commercial insects killer.

“It has taken care of the problem and should not affect any meetings [Tuesday] or [Wednesday].”