HealthCore Alliance seeks resident input on health care services in Woodbury

Talk about it

Woodbury HealthCore Alliance is looking for some input on health care services in the city.

The initiative, launched about two years ago, is seeking information on how residents use health care facilities in the city.

“What health care services do they already access here and what services do they go elsewhere to get,” said Janelle Schmitz, Woodbury planning and economic development manager. “Part of it was just to let the residents know that there are so many health care businesses here in town.”

The survey will be available online through Monday, Aug. 6. About 200 respondents already took the survey when they learned about it through the city’s InTouch system.

Questions on the survey vary from the types of specialties that residents access in Woodbury, to what kind of health and wellness seminars they would like to attend.

There is also the question: If you leave Woodbury to receive other services, why do you leave?

The choices include preference of physicians, availability of specialty and insurance demands.

The HealthCore Alliance has a committee of individuals from the health care community that came up with the questions, Schmitz said.

A similar survey was done at the Woodbury Community Expo in the spring, but it wasn’t the best venue to gather that information and only about 30 people responded.

“There wasn’t a clear cut direction and that’s why we needed a broader sample base to give us direction or input,” Schmitz said.

The HealthCore Alliance presence at the expo was more to make people aware of the organization’s mission, she said.

HealthCore is an initiative to promote Woodbury as a medical destination and to grow health care businesses in the community, according to the city’s website.

The HealthCore Alliance committee plans to take results from the survey and share it with local health care providers to help them better target their areas, or bring services that aren’t available in Woodbury.

Survey results will be shared at the next large HealthCore Alliance meeting, which will be a strategy session to figure out where to go from there, Schmitz said.

“This is going to help at least give us that community feedback,” she added.

Click here to take the survey.

Tags: area news, news, health