Community Needs and Improvements

St. Peter’s is committed to making a positive impact on the health of the community it serves. One of the many strategies we use to do this is by working to meet the unique health needs of area residents.

Community Health Improvement process

In Fiscal Year 2022, St. Peter’s conducted a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). This report was then utilized to guide the St. Peter’s Health Implementation Strategy and as a resource for the collaborative community health improvement process with the Healthy Together Steering Committee and Task Force.

The goals of these processes are to:

To improve residents’ health status, increase their life spans, and elevate their overall quality of life. A healthy community is not only one where its residents suffer little from physical and mental illness, but also one where its residents enjoy a high quality of life.
To reduce the health disparities among residents. By gathering demographic information along with health status and behavior data, it will be possible to identify population segments that are most at-risk for various diseases and injuries. Intervention plans aimed at targeting these individuals may then be developed to combat some of the socio-economic factors that have historically had a negative impact on residents’ health.
To increase accessibility to preventive services for all community residents. More accessible preventive services will prove beneficial in accomplishing the first goal (improving health status, increasing life spans and elevating the quality of life), as well as lowering the costs associated with caring for late-stage diseases resulting from a lack of preventive care.

It is a two-part process:

St. Peter’s Health CHNA & Implementation Strategy: First, identify the health needs facing our community (conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment, or CHNA); secondly develop a health system, service-area specific, measurable plan (an Implementation Strategy). This plan prioritizes and focuses on the areas of greatest needs, taking into account the total available resources to effectively address those issues. In the summer of 2021 (early Fiscal Year 2022), St. Peter’s retained Professional Research Consultants, Inc., of Omaha, Nebraska, for the fourth cycle to complete a CHNA. This included a random-sample telephone survey of community residents on their health conditions, behaviors, preferences; it also included an online “key informant” survey targeted to individuals with a broad interest in the health of the community. St. Peter’s partnered with community stakeholders, including Lewis & Clark Public Health, through the Healthy Together Steering Committee, to plan and develop the survey instruments.
Lewis & Clark County Specific Community Health Report and Community Health Improvement Plan: Second, as a member of the Healthy Together Steering Committee, St. Peter’s participates in summarizing the key findings from the CHNA report and other public health data to produce a joint 2021 Community Health Report, which is presented to the public and is available below for review. The Community Health Report will provide a snapshot of the key health issues facing Lewis & Clark County that will include the key findings from the PRC report, as well as other community data. In a wide community collaborative process, the Healthy Together Task Force will then utilize the Community Health Report to create the Community Health Improvement Plan for Lewis & Clark County. This plan will be completed in mid-2022 and will be available here for review once finalized.

*The St. Peter’s Health Board of Directors approved the CHNA Findings and Implementation Strategy Draft as presented on April 5, 2022.

If you'd like to request a print copy of the Community Health Needs Assessment, please email hwisemiller@sphealth.org.