Contact Us

EMERGENCY RESPONSE CALL 911

• If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911.
• If you have non-emergency concerns about your health, please contact your doctor.
• If you need to cancel or change an appointment, please contact the location where your appointment is scheduled.

Community Outreach

St. Mary’s Health Care System, which includes St. Mary’s Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, and Sacred Heart Hospital, is dedicated to acting as an involved community partner by donating time, services, money and sponsorship to a rich variety of community causes. Please visit our Community Benefit page to learn more about how to request our support.

Contact St. Mary’s by Mail

St. Mary’s Health Care System
1230 Baxter St.
Athens GA 30606-3791

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Media Relations

We appreciate your interest in St. Mary’s Health Care System and look forward to assisting you.

Option One: Please contact Mark Ralston, Public Relations Manager, with your information, interview, and/or photography requests, including those that involve leaders, staff or patients.

Email: mralston@stmarysathens.org
Phone: (706) 389-3897
After hours: Call main switchboard at (706) 389-3000 and ask operator to contact him.

We have a responsibility to protect the confidential information, privacy and well-being of our patients. Therefore:

• Patients and/or their legal representatives must give both St. Mary’s and Trinity Health written permission before participating in interviews, or being filmed or photographed, by signing a HIPAA-compliant authorization form — a process managed by our media relations representatives.
• A member of our media relations team must accompany all members of the media while they are visiting St. Mary’s and its campuses, including, but not limited to, St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital, and St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital.
• Filming and photography may only take place in locations specifically authorized by St. Mary’s media relations representatives.

Patient Identification and Conditions

St. Mary’s and all of its facilities follow American Hospital Association (AHA) guidelines regarding patient privacy issues contained in the Health Insurance and Portability Act (HIPAA) and abide by guidelines and recommendations published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Neither media relations contacts nor other health system personnel are permitted to identify patients to the media, but, if a member of the media provides the patient’s name as part of their inquiry, we are, in some limited cases, able to confirm the patient is being treated in our facility. In these cases, media relations representatives could provide a one-word general condition update, as long as the patient, or their representative, has not requested that the information be withheld.

These general condition statements and their descriptions are:

• Undetermined: Individual awaiting physician assessment.
• Good: Vital signs (indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, temperature and respiration) are stable and within normal limits; individual is conscious and comfortable. Indicators are excellent.
• Fair: Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Individual is conscious, but may be uncomfortable. Indicators are favorable.
• Serious: Vital signs may be unstable and not within normal limits. Individual is acutely ill. Indicators are questionable.
• Critical: Vital signs are unstable and not within normal limits. Individual may be unconscious. Indicators are unfavorable.
• Discharged: Individual was discharged.

Please note:

• One-word descriptions are not medical terms but are based on a physician’s best judgement of a patient’s condition as relayed to hospital spokespeople.
• If a patient who opted out of our information system is hospitalized under an alias, or is a psychiatric patient or abuse victim, they will not be included in the information system. In such cases, our response will be, simply, “We do not have a patient listed under that name.”
• According to the AHA, “stable” should not be used either as a condition or in combination with other conditions.