NSH board passes motions on recordings, confidentiality agreement

During the last two board meetings, the North Shore Health hospital board passed two motions regarding transparency with the public. The board has been discussing both motions since the start of the year.

During the June 19 board meeting, the board passed a motion to allow the public to join board meetings remotely via the online meeting tool Zoom. The board has used Zoom, but access to join remotely was only available to those presenting during meetings or board members attending remotely. Those who wish to join the meeting remotely must contact the CEO, Kimber Wraalstad, to receive the Zoom link.

During the same meeting, Wraalstad also advised the board that the hospital keeps audio recordings of previous meetings and makes them available to the public upon request.  These audio recordings will be placed on a flash drive and sent to those who request them by mail.

Wraalstad said North Shore Health did not have any plans to send audio recordings digitally.

“The process works okay for us,” Wraalstad told WTIP.  “We have a lot of focus on other things in IT. This is not one of our priorities.”

The other motion was to replace the confidentiality agreement that the board removed during the March 20 meeting. Board members Milan Schmidt and Patty Winchell-Dahl worked with the hospital’s legal counsel on the new agreement, which the board adopted with a 4-1 vote.

“Although I still believe that the document isn’t necessarily required under the bylaws and statutes,” Schmidt said during the July board meeting. “I do believe that the document, as currently drafted, does meet the provision that is required in our bylaws of being an acknowledgement of confidentiality.”

The lone vote against adopting the agreement was Sam Usem.

“I voted against the new confidentiality agreement because I believe public service should begin with a presumption of transparency. This version flips that model—treating information as confidential by default, unless proven otherwise,” Usem told WTIP. “That’s a dangerous shift. I’m fully committed to protecting private patient and personnel data, but we must also protect the public’s right to know and uphold open, accountable governance.”

The motion to allow the public to join board meetings remotely passed with a 5-0 vote. However, multiple board members characterized it as a motion that made all board members “similarly uncomfortable.”

“It’s all about compromise, and I certainly don’t expect us to be five-zero all the time,” Board Chair Randy Wiitala told WTIP.  “But I think that shows that, you know, folks can, can count on the fact that we’re going to talk it out and we’ll come up with a solution that we feel is best.”

Many Cook County government meetings and Grand Marais municipal meetings are made public via YouTube.  The board debated this measure, but some members raised concerns about that level of access.

“I think we do make information available to the public. I think we do a good job. As far as posting things, people can ask. They can come to any one of us,” WInchell-Dahl said during the June board meeting. “You know, people are people, and if somebody gets upset or doesn’t like what you say, or they think they’ve been hurt or you’ve done something to them, they can decide to do something bad.”

Both motions address a level of transparency with the public that has been the subject of much discussion at board meetings throughout the year. A consultant from the University of Minnesota has been contracted to help the board navigate its new configuration and ensure the board remains “high functioning.”

“We have to keep in mind that I think most will agree that we want to make sure that we have complete transparency in the work that is being done by the board and by the hospital, and to continue to foster that trust throughout the community,” Wiitala told WTIP.  “Everybody could have a different idea on how to achieve that, but in the end, I think we did a good job figuring out what was acceptable for all the board members and hopefully will be useful to the community.”

WTIP spoke with Board Chair Rand Wiitala about the June and July board meetings. The audio of that conversation can be found below.

Josh Hinke August 1, 2025