In the News

“I fully believe that transparency is the only way to make this work,” said Nneka O. Sederstrom, Hennepin Healthcare’s chief health equity officer. “I want a little bit of a blueprint of our successes and failures. … No one knows how to do it the right way, but we’re going to do our best to show what we’re doing.”

Hennepin Healthcare held a summit to to encourage young Black women to learn more about a career in healthcare.

“It’s also true that heart disease is the number one cause of death in women,” said Dr. David Hilden.

“When you have physicians who look like you, come from your community, there’s an instant trust factor — that we know is one of the main reasons patients do better,” said Dr. Nneka Sederstrom.

“We know that there are very few black and brown physicians in our area — let alone our country — and we know that the impact of having a person of color taking care of people of color is one of the only ways to minimize health disparities and inequities,” said Dr. Nneka Sederstrom.”

“We all understand and know the health disparities that we are facing, especially our black and brown communities. The inequities are real and they’re very prominent in Minnesota,” said Nneka Sederstrom, PhD, chief health equity officer at Hennepin Healthcare. “We also know from the data that one of the best, easiest, and quickest ways to decrease disparities within our black and brown communities is to have clinicians of the same race and ethnicity take care of those patients.”

MPR News host Tom Crann spoke about the findings with one of the lead researchers of the report, Dr. Kate Diaz Vickery who is a physician and the co-director of the Health, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice Lab at the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute.

How does the feeling of love impact the heart? It depends on what type of love you’re experiencing, said Dr. Michelle Carlson, a cardiologist with Hennepin Healthcare. 

“If it’s new love, it’s exciting. We’re going to have hormones released in our body, hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine,” said Dr. Carlson.

Making an appointment online takes 30 to 60 seconds, compared to calling and waiting up to 10 to 20 minutes, said Dr. Ryan Jelinek, a physician who is certified in clinical informatics, the application of technology to health care-related problems. More significantly, internet access is a social determinant of health, Jelinek said.

“What this study shows … is that there are tremendous and incredibly detrimental health effects to be a person experiencing homelessness in our state,” said Dr. Kate Diaz Vickery, a primary care physician and co-director of a research lab on health, homelessness and criminal justice at the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, which prepared the report.

“What an incredible day to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our transplant center,” said Hennepin Healthcare CEO Jennifer DeCubellis. “And just this morning, hearing stories and hearing lives impacted has just been incredibly impactful.”

Dr. Charles Reznikoff, an addiction medicine expert with Hennepin Healthcare, said persistent marijuana use has hurt some patients’ health, jobs and families.

“This year it seems like it came a little early and we’ve had some warnings put out for being on the lookout for more invasive strep,” said Dr. Stacene Maroushek, a Hennepin Healthcare pediatrician and pediatric infectious disease specialist.

A new federal law now allows anyone with a license to prescribe a lifesaving drug — buprenorphine, also know as suboxone. Murphy spoke with addiction specialist Dr. Charles Reznikoff, with Hennepin Healthcare, about suboxone and whether the testing strips in any way encourage drug use.

“We haven’t had phenomenal vaccination rates in Minnesota with the newest booster, the bivalent booster,” said Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn with Hennepin Healthcare. 

In fact, only 15% of eligible Americans have received the latest version of the shot.

“It’s really frustrating because we know that being fully vaccinated is the best protection that people can have against severe illness, hospitalization and death,” said Lichtsinn.

“There’s been several people, especially out in Philly and in New York, where this has been a bigger issue,” said Brit Culp, an addiction treatment specialist with Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis. 

Eliminating the X-waiver requirement represents a significant “paradigm shift,” said Dr. Jon Cole, an ER physician at Hennepin County Medical Center and medical director of the Minnesota Poison Control System: “Patients will have substantially greater access to treatment now, all over Minnesota, as long as their local physicians are willing to prescribe the medication.” Dr. Tim Kummer and Dr. Nick Simpson were also interviewed for this article.

“So we had COVID, flu and RSV hit earlier than typically, and it’s been with us for quite a while,” said Tara Tindall, a pharmacy supervisor with Hennepin Healthcare. “So the manufacturers couldn’t keep up with demand. That’s what we hear from them is increased demand. However, typically they pre-plan for the season, but I think with the three viruses it’s been really difficult for them to keep up.”

HCMC in downtown Minneapolis is among the many facilities seeing their usual increase in slip-and-fall injuries, due to the snowy and icy winter conditions. Dr. Stephen Smith, an emergency physician with Hennepin Healthcare, said these patients have flooded into the Emergency Department for roughly the past month.

The federal funds will go toward mental health and anger management services, according to Next Step Director Kentral Galloway. Officials are also considering the possibility of expanding into Children’s Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis.