After working in the healthcare industry for over 15 years, Ericka Sinclair had a vision of redefining patient care by creating a community-based clinic. In traditional clinical care, she saw patterns that were not beneficial to the patients: physicians weren’t trained to have deep conversations with them, and people often didn’t know how to use their insurance. As a response, Sinclair had her sights set on a “systems change,” she says, so in 2015, she started what is now called Health Connections, Inc.
Health Connections started as a medical center meant to provide primary care for vulnerable populations with a special focus in HIV treatment and prevention and is now known for its specialty in transgender care. Sinclair built a model that prioritized training staff to have deeper conversations with clients and teach patients how to use their insurance.
“So, you have insurance, but you don’t know how to use it,” Sinclair says. “There needs to be a bridge there. I wanted Health Connections to be that—be the bridge, fill the gap, make sure people understand how systems work.” Their patients may have hour-long primary care appointments, rather than the standard 15-minutes at most major institutions—it depends on the needs of the patient.
It's About Relationships
The care providers at Health Connections make a point to build a relationship with their clients and learn about the outside stressors in their lives that may impact their health. The point, Sinclair explains, is to leave people feeling whole at the end of their visit. “What could [the healthcare system] look like if we were really invested in getting people care,” she wonders.
The success of this model is exemplified in some of their earliest patients who were both transgender and HIV positive. With the help of her main nurse practitioner Linda Wesp, Sinclair realized these patients’ HIV medication wasn’t working properly because of the hormones they were taking—often under the table from friends.
Once realizing this, Sinclair and Wesp were able to get those patients’ hormones covered by their insurance and find a combination of medicine that worked. Little did they know, Health Connections was filling a gap in the Milwaukee area for transgender care.
Building a Workforce
Since the beginning, Sinclair has prioritized mentoring and supporting her staff, but now she has big plans for expanding that model. She has long believed that changing the healthcare system requires investing in the workforce by giving care providers both the support they need and experience across disciplines.
Health Connections is beginning to partner with medical universities including UW Milwaukee College of Nursing, Trinity School, Milwaukee Area Technical College, and Bryant & Stratton College. The plan is to build a rotation for students to fill clinical hours, which allows them to gain experience across disciplines and institutions. These community clinics would be based in different neighborhoods around the city so they can serve different patient populations. Sinclair wants to disrupt the traditional siloed model of training and create spaces that build community, trust, and safe space for learning.
Most importantly, the caregivers would have access to counseling and support that keeps them healthy. Sinclair says they’ll graduate from the program with the skills they need to be professionals, “but they will also walk away with an understanding of how to be healthy themselves as caregivers, so that when they are taking care of other people, they are literally operating at the highest level they can.”
Sinclair envisions a future where our health care system looks different—one that invests in people. “We want to change systems in real tangible ways,” she says.
Learn more about Health Connections, Inc. at healthconnectmke.org.
Read the article on the Shepherd Express, part of the regular column Hero of the Month.