VTH Board Minutes 12/10/2020

Updates: Info Only

Personnel Updates

• Update from D. French – 9 searches for faculty positions in progress or pending: Open rank anesthesia, open rank dermatology, ECC, IFAMS instructor, surgical oncology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, zoo med instructor (Dr. Kehoe hired), radiation oncology, tenure track IFAMS, pet population management (vice Agapis)
• VTH Admin Re-structuring complete – Ms. Stephanie Camp has been offered her current job with a new title of VTH Assistant Director of Finance
• Proposal for Asst. Dean Clinical Services – the Dean is discussing college reorganization for clinical services
• Unemployment Identity Theft – this is a current problem for university employees

Facilities

• Expansion project on-going, delayed occupation of Phase 1,currently planned for January 4.
• Ophtho Service Space renovation complete – holding on move to allow for flex space (SAIM temp. move – phase 3)

Programs

• COVID cold-weather receiving – challenges, successes – for the most part is going well
• iPad video chat with owners – still waiting on IT
• Purina kitchen/food suppliers/distribution – some food shortages
• Gift Fund use – Dr. Harper will be emailing the protocol to remind users of fund availability for patient support

Other

• License Renewal – January 2021 for IL licenses – JW to send email with details for how to renew
• VetStar updates – we have hosted the company for on-site visits which they have provided at reduced cost. Making progress on SANDI conversion.
• Holidays – reminder that services will be open on gift days. Only services that may be completely closed are those with single faculty members.
• Forms - Euthanasia forms are being revised to reflect new procedures. There is a significant deviation from standard with regards to provision of estimates and receipt of informed consent. VTH Admin is modifying the forms to enhance compliance and will meet with individual services when implemented.
• ER Receiving – The VTH will be adopting ER levels for receiving limitations based on caseload and providing this information to rVETs.

COVID Updates 

• No community spread in VTH
  
  
• Communications to the VTH are not allowed to include service/personnel identifiers. The VTH Director’s office, along with the College Safety Officer and HR will be notifying individuals who have potentially been exposed.
  
  
• Modified Quarantine regulations/Contact Tracing protocol – An email sent December 13, 2020 from Drew Schlosser (CVM HR) advised that his office and the CVM Safety Officer will be doing contact tracing following incidents of positive personnel in the College. Essential personnel may still be placed on modified quarantine based on operational need. Persons who have been in close contact with a person who has received a positive test for COVID-19 and who are placed on modified quarantine while continuing to work in the VTH must do the following:

1. Test every day for the first 5 days (work days only) following last known contact with the positive individual with negative results
2. Receive a negative test on day 7 of the quarantine period indicating that quarantine may be ended
3. Remain asymptomatic
   
   

• Vaccination – The first COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed in the country and Illinois Public Health will coordinate dose distribution in IL. The first to get vaccinated are COVID human health care workers and persons living in assisted living centers. Veterinarians and essential personnel will likely be in the second tier to have access to the vaccine. Dr. Stephanie Keating is working with Lisa Moore and HR to coordinate with the campus shield initiative who will be managing vaccination.
  
  
• Client demonstration needs – A need has been identified to allow for personnel to demonstrate procedures for clients who are providing home care for their animals. The VTH Board agreed that there is a need in some services. Discussion was had regarding designating a single space for this purpose but that was logistically difficult. Consensus was reached that services that wished to use the communication room assigned to that service may do so with the following caveats:

1. Room occupancy limits must be enforced
2. Clients and VTH personnel must always be wearing masks in an appropriate manner.
3. VTH personnel must wear a face shield in addition to their mask
4. Interactions must be limited to <15 minutes requiring preparation prior to the clients arrival and subsequent conversations occurring remotely
5. Appropriate interpersonal distance of 6 feet is maintained between the VTH personnel and client whenever possible
6. Services wishing to have the client enter the VTH for demonstration purposes must coordinate with the VTH Admissions customer service staff/docent monitoring client access to the VTH

CPR Levels 
Update Collar Use

• The Anesthesia service will be implementing an SOP for the identification of small animals with the use of color-coded collars to indicate code status. The collars will be placed in addition to written code status on the anesthesia record.
• “A member of the primary service responsible for patient care will apply either a red, yellow, or green collar to their patient’s neck prior to the patient being received by the anesthesia service. The color selected will reflect the patient’s client-approved CPR status:
  • Red – Do not resuscitate
  • Yellow – Closed chest CPR
  • Green – Open chest CPR
• If placement of a neck collar is not possible, the CPR status must be verbally communicated to the anesthesiologist overseeing patient care and the CPR collar must still be provided. This collar is in addition to the orange admission collar with the patient identification label. Collars will be stored in the anesthesia prep room in the Small Animal Clinic.”
• SOP being updated to include use in ICU.
• Board Discussion – 1 or 2 CPR levels? There is consensus that initial discussions with clients should be based on ‘do not resuscitate’ vs ‘resuscitate and perform CPR’. Discussions regarding what is involved in effective resuscitation of a patient, and the likelihood of successful resuscitation should only be had if that option is selected by the client and should be had between client and clinician. Internally, 3 levels of resuscitation will be continued as indicated above.

Budget Information

• Budget Information Report provided by S. Camp

ER_House Officer Funds

• A proposal has been submitted to consider Service-In-Excess payment to house officers who come in for emergency work. This was discussed and voted down by the board members.
• A conversation RE house officer emergency fees, transfer fees, and consult fees ensued. Consults are hardships on services and clients pay a small fee for this service. Currently, 75% of consult revenue goes to the consulting service’s operating account and 25% goes to the service’s house officer training account. This serves as incentive for house officers to do consults. Transfers should be renamed to reflect service exam performed when patient is transferred. Transfer fees go to service’s operating account. House officer emergency fee, when charged, will continue to go to the service’s house officer training account. There was consensus that there should be guidelines regarding what can be paid for out of training funds, and that funding should be equitable to the degree that the training requirements are met for the house officers in the service. The VTH will work on a model, with the possible matching of VCM funds for house officer training.

Dialysis Initiative

• A veterinarian alum has proposed a gift of $75K to initiate a dialysis program in the ECC service. S. Camp and service members are working on the business model for the service

LA Boarding Pricing

• Charge audit of equine per diem costs for university owned animals residing in the VTH resulted in increasing price to cover costs (from $16.30 to $20.33).
• Equine therio would like to charge this for client horses. Comparison with other breeding programs:
  Columbia, MO - $19.5
  Summerfields, FL - $19
  CSU - $24
  Amissville, VA - $17.5
• There was not support for this charge adjustment currently for patients of the VTH. No change in the fee structure for the Theriogenology patients will occur.

Board Structure

• The VTH Board structure is comprised of VCM Section Heads, with the exception of the pathologists, and 2 ad hoc faculty members. A proposal has been made to allow a Section to permanently assigned a member of the section to the VTH Board in lieu of the Section Head. The VTH Board members were in support of this proposal when the faculty member standing in for the Section Head provided critical insight into the services comprising the section. A policy will be finalized to allow for this change in structure.