Honeycutt previously served the CEO for Saint Mary’s Regional Health System in Arkansas, according to a news release, and has over 27 years of progressive hospital and system leadership experience.
He said he decided to join CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital in San Marcos because he was not only impressed with the hospital’s mission but also the vision and value CHRISTUS holds.
Community Impact interviewed Honeycutt on the ways he plans to facilitate the growth of health care resources in the city as well as his long-term goals. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How will you facilitate growth of health care resources in San Marcos as the city and its surrounding areas continue to grow?
CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital is committed to San Marcos and surrounding communities to provide the best health care close to home and provide a solid option for care along the I-35 corridor. As the area continues to grow we’ll continue to look for opportunities to attract physicians, clinicians and associates so that we can enhance and expand our service line to address the needs of the community.
The goal being that we want to be the place where physicians want to practice, patients want to seek quality health care and people want to work—as we fulfill those three initiatives we will be able to further seek to fulfill our mission of extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.
What kinds of health care services would you say are lacking in San Marcos, and how do you plan on improving those services in the future?
Every three years, CHRISTUS Health performs a community needs assessment where we investigate a multitude of different indicators from the community’s largest financial burdens to the types of health care services they need the most. On the most recent assessment, which address the years of 2023-2025, ... our report illustrates that our top three chronic illnesses affecting our San Marcos residents are diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
These findings assist us in developing strategies and programs to address those specific needs as well as the associated comorbidities that come alongside those diseases. As a result, our CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic footprint has grown and is growing to include additional primary care, cardiology, bariatric surgeons and internal medicine physicians.
With that growth also in the clinic and having that strong clinic presence, we also try to empower our community members to manage their chronic illnesses, and to seek and establish care with our primary care physician practices.
And then lastly, we want to partner and promote health screenings and healthy living educational opportunities by addressing the needs to manage those illnesses and their associated comorbidities.
What are some of your goals for CHRISTUS Santa Rosa in San Marcos?
Well, first of all, we must continue to grow with this fast-growing community and continue to anticipate the residents’ health care needs. Secondly, I want to enhance the hospital’s presence in the San Marcos community as we look to partner and look for partnership opportunities in the surrounding communities as well.
But on a personal note, I look forward to getting involved with local civic organizations and local athletic programs at the high school level. High school athletics is a huge passion area for me, so I’m looking forward to being able to dive into that relationship with not only San Marcos High School, but San Marcos Academy and some of the surrounding high schools as well.
Lastly, I want to continue our quality care journey. In that regard, we have a very talented and dedicated team of health care professionals and medical staff here at our San Marcos Campus.
What does the hospital's growth plan look like for the next 5-10 years?
I feel very confident in our teams at the hospital both clinically and support departments as they both play a key role in providing quality care that we seek to provide to all our patients.
Over the next 5-10 years we need to continue to grow our surgery lines of service—that’s general surgery, that’s bariatric surgery, it’s urology, ENT, GI, all those different lines in order to continue to address the needs of our community. I also want to continue a very strong relationship with our hospital-based physician groups. I think that’s vitally important as patients and family members continue to choose to come to CHRISTUS Santa Rosa San Marcos that they know they’re going to get good, high-quality care from people who are in their hometown and providing a service, I think that’s vitally important as well.
I want to be the emergency room of choice for our patients as well as our EMS providers. I call that a culture of yes, and within that culture of yes I want to embed accountability and a focus on quality results. Lastly, when people of San Marcos think about health care, I want them to think about CHRISTUS Santa Rosa hospital and know that they can find high-quality care with people that show them compassion and empathy.
