Residents of Fayette and Lee Voice Opinions About St. Mark’s Via Survey

The Dallas Marketing Group, Inc. released results of a survey it conducted of residents of Fayette and Lee County to better understand what healthcare services the community expects. The survey was mailed late in 2019 to 17,654 households in both counties and 1,398 residents responded by return mail or online. A similar survey conducted in 2012 serves as a reference and is used as the baseline of comparisons below.

Key findings from the 2019 survey were:

• Community members have greater preference for St. Mark’s Medical Center today than the previous survey. Now, 69% prefer St. Mark’s, an increase of 33% in the communities closest to the hospital. The study also showed that the preference nearly tripled in communities further away.

• Residents like to get most of their healthcare needs locally. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of people now agree that all their medical needs can be handled locally, an increase of twenty-three percent since 2012.

• Confidence has increased in St. Mark’s Medical Center’s ability to handle all the community’s medical needs. People are now more confident in St. Mark’s ability to handle all their medical needs and are significantly less likely to bypass local care and go elsewhere.

• St. Mark’s Medical Center offers more services than the community knows about. More than a third of all community members were unaware of half the services St. Mark’s offers, such as Cardiac Rehab, Women’s Health, Neurology, Urology, Orthopedics and some Oncology services.

• Community members look to St. Mark’s Medical Center for more health education and community involvement. When asked for advice on how St. Mark’s could promote better health, community members suggested greater community involvement including: Health Education, Meetings, Health Fairs, and Screenings

• Over 95% of residents thought the quality of inpatient and outpatient care at St. Mark’s Met or Exceeded their expectations. However, fewer (79%) thought the Emergency Department did.

St. Mark’s Medical Center said that it values the community’s participation in the survey and believes this reflects a sense of involvement, care, concern and support for St. Mark’s and its future. St. Mark’s leadership shared: “We appreciate the many suggestions about how the hospital can better serve the medical needs of the community, and we are listening. While much of our efforts since the spring of 2020 have focused on the pandemic, the hospital has begun to address many of the issues raised by this survey. For example, based on concerns about the Emergency Department we have added more staff and reduced waiting time.” Please visit www.smmctx. org for more information on the survey results.