New health, wellness services to open at St. Joseph’s next summer

A suite of new and expanded health and wellness services is coming to St. Paul.

Tuesday, Fairview Health Services announced plans for its Community Health and Wellness Hub, which is aimed at health equity and engagement in the community.

The hub will create a centralized campus of services, facilities and programs at St. Joseph’s in St. Paul, all targeting health disparities by prioritizing and addressing barriers to wellness. The move comes after the emergency room at St. Joseph’s closed at the end of last year.

Fairview says Minnesota Community Care — the state’s largest federally qualified health center — will open a new community health clinic offering no- to low-cost primary care and other health and wellness services.

M Health Fairview Mental Health and Addiction Services will expand outpatient mental health and addiction services it currently provides in St. Paul and move to a new location within the hub. The clinic will offer a range of outpatient services from psychiatry to intensive outpatient programs for substance use disorders, while expanding on successful new programs, like Transition Care Services.

Additionally, Ebenezer Senior Living will operate a first-of-its-kind model of adult day services to help underserved seniors maintain active and independent lives.

Those programs are all expected to start at some point in 2022.

Starting this fall, Second Harvest Heartland and other community partners will operate new food storage, distribution and pop-up food shelves at the hub to address immediate food needs, Fairview says. Supporting organizations include The Sanneh Foundation, Keystone Community Services, and Christian Cupboard Emergency Food Shelf. Fairview said it’s also exploring further opportunities for permanent and long-term food access programs at the hub.

According to Fairview, a new M Health Fairview Center for Community Health Equity will also expand health equity efforts, and the hub will include enhanced community education space.

"For generations, we’ve witnessed the community health indicators for those living in and around our most racially diverse neighborhoods decline," James Hereford, the president and CEO of Fairview, said. "Today is an important step for Fairview as an organization and as a member of this community in thinking about health holistically and proactively addressing the outsized role factors like race, income, and zip code have on a person’s opportunity to be healthy. We want to focus not only on treating our patients when they are sick, but helping them be well."

Construction for the new space is set to start in January with the hub opening to patients and community members next summer. The food access programs, however, will open this fall.