Saline Memorial Hospital launches comprehensive study to evaluate health needs of the community

Saline Memorial Hospital, in collaboration with other local health professionals and stakeholders, has launched a comprehensive Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), to identify public health needs and priorities in Saline County and its neighboring communities.

The CHNA is a systematic collection, assembly, analysis and dissemination of information about the comprehensive health of the community. Its role is to identify factors that negatively affect the health of a population and determine the availability of resources with the community to adequately address those factors. Saline Health System’s Interim CEO Jeff Bourgeois said the assessment will provide a rich foundation for improving and promoting the health of each community member.

“Guided by the results of this important community assessment and the progress we’ve made since the last CHNA, we will soon have a more comprehensive understanding of the health needs of our community,” Bourgeois said. “This will help us focus our resources as we work towards making communities healthier.”

Saline Memorial Hospital performed a CHNA three years ago and is now assessing where the community is and what still needs to be done. The assessment is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. A report of the results will be presented to the community.

Saline Memorial Hospital’s CHNA will use both existing and new data to assess local health needs and recommend possible improvement methods. Some of the data has already been collected through previous local, state and federal public health organizations.

Starting Monday, Sept. 23, community members, physicians and hospital employees are being surveyed about local health issues and what changes they would like to see in the community. That data will be used to set priorities for health improvement.

“The survey will be looking at what the concerns are as seen through the eyes of the residents of Saline County and our neighboring communities,” Bourgeois said.

The survey is available at SalineMemorial.org/Survey until Monday, Oct. 11.

Strata, Saline Memorial Hospital’s research partner, will collect, quantify and interpret the survey data. The results will be shared with the hospital’s board of directors and administration to help develop and refine the hospital’s programs and services to ensure the community's healthcare needs are met.

Once the data gathering is complete, the hospital is hosting a health summit on Thursday, Oct. 24. The survey data will be shared at the summit, which is a way to gather additional input from community leaders in order to create and implement a plan for health improvement.

“After our last CHNA, we started exploring opportunities to address the community’s struggle with substance use disorder, which led us to launching the StepOne acute withdrawal management program here at the hospital,” Bourgeois said. “That is just one example of how we truly do use the information we collect during the assessment to create an action plan that will help improve the lives of the people in our community.”

About Saline Memorial Hospital
Saline Health System is made up of Saline Memorial Hospital, a 177-bed acute care facility, and Saline Clinics, a network of both primary care and specialty care clinics. The hospital is accredited through The Joint Commission for meeting quality and safety standards, the American College of Cardiology as a Chest Pain Center with Primary PCI, the MBSAQIP as a bariatric surgery center, Optum in the Bariatric Centers of Excellence network, CARF as a rehabilitation center and the AASM as a sleep center. For more information about Saline Memorial Hospital, please call 501.776.6000 or visit SalineMemorial.org. For more information about LifePoint Health, visit LifePointHealth.net.