Minnesota Community Care

Minnesota Community Care is Minnesota’s largest federally qualified health center, which are community-based healthcare providers that receive funding to provide primary care services in underserved areas. Minnesota Community Care serves more than 30,000 patients in the Twin Cities each year, partnering in communities to address systemic barriers to health. Minnesota Community Care will offer integrated primary care services and other supportive health, wellness, and education services at the Fairview Community Health and Wellness Hub in a clinic called the St. Paul Wellness Center.  

Minnesota Community Care representatives Lauren Graber, MD, Senior Vice President of Population Health and Quality, and Sri Umapathi, DC, MHS, Medical Director of St. Paul Wellness Center, share why they are excited to welcome patients to their space in the hub.
 

What do you want the community to know about what they can expect from the St. Paul Wellness Center and Minnesota Community Care?  

Lauren Graber: We are putting together an interdisciplinary team at the St. Paul Wellness Center to offer a variety of services to our patients. We will do primary care visits, wellness visits, telehealth visits (video or phone), and walk-in/urgent care visits, and more. In partnering with our patients, we want to understand what wellness means to them individually and how we can help them achieve that. We want to understand what has worked for them in the past, and what barriers stand in their way. We want to surround each person with a team of experts to support them in achieving their wellness goals.   
 
Sri Umapathi: We're building a model based on the patient's needs – not what we as providers want them to have, but what they want to have. Patients are going to be telling us how to guide them in their care. We're going to have a primary care team that will be enhanced by other wraparound services including a social services team, behavioral health and substance abuse teams, an RN team, a nutrition team, chiropractic team, as well as a gender care clinic. We're working to learn and see what the community is going to need and want from us. And we are trying to provide that for them in the best way possible.
 

What excites you most about the hub?   

Lauren Graber: In St. Paul and the East Metro, the community has been asking us for a long time to do health care differently. To listen to what the community really needs, and to lean in to make sure that we're coordinating care. They are asking for support they need in their homes, and not just within the walls of a clinic. And I'm really excited to see how this hub model is going to respond to that need, coming back to the values of putting the patient first and deeply listening. We at Minnesota Community Care are excited to join this joint journey with the community and to adapt and change what we're doing to meet community needs.   

Sri Umapathi: We will be implementing a new model of health care that focuses on the whole person. We aim to provide need-based and proactive health care that is culturally appropriate. We also want to form long-term equal partnerships with our community members where they are educated in holistic health and want greater responsibility in their health with guidance from us. Our goal is for the community to have better health literacy and empowerment so they can have true ownership of their health and are stakeholders in the future direction of healthcare.    

Interested in more? Read this LinkedIn post from Diane Tran, system executive director of community health equity and engagement.