Mission Statement
Hennepin Healthcare Foundation exists to guide and encourage the community to support the mission of Hennepin Healthcare to provide the best possible care to every patient, search for new ways to improve care, educate providers, and ensure access to healthcare for all. Generosity from the community enhances equitable access, offers aid and comfort to patients and families, and supports the medical workforce. Hennepin Healthcare is a non-profit integrated system of care operated by Hennepin Healthcare System, Inc. (“Hennepin Healthcare”), a subsidiary corporation of Hennepin County. A 15-member board oversees Hennepin Healthcare, and the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners oversees the safety-net mission, operating budget, and major expenditures.
Our mission is to partner with our community, our patients, and their families to ensure access to outstanding care while improving health and wellness through teaching, patient and community education, and research.
Hennepin Healthcare’s growth is built upon decades of recognition for leadership in medical education, emergency preparedness, research, and clinical care in many medical specialties. Our education and training programs include Graduate Medical Education, Undergraduate Medical Education, Advanced Practice Provider, Nursing, Continuing Medical Education, and Emergency and Critical Care, amongst others. Hennepin Healthcare has trained half of the state’s physicians, began one of the country's first emergency medicine residency programs more than 30 years ago, developed a pediatric dental residency program, and delivers training for 50 different health professions annually to more than 20,000 developing clinicians. Hennepin Healthcare is the largest off-campus training affiliate of the University of Minnesota Medical School. As such, a large proportion of the organization’s clinicians are on the academic faculty at the University of Minnesota, with many holding leadership positions in graduate medical education programs.
Impact and Programs
Accomplishments
Patient Care: Donations support the urgent needs of our patient population and remove barriers to healthcare access. Examples include transportation, co-pay or medical equipment support, music and art therapy, emergency clothing, food, lodging for out-of-town families, spiritual care, children’s literacy, child life services, and a Collaborative Care Model, a 5-year project to reduce health disparities and make behavioral health care services more accessible through primary care. Community Health: Funding supports community healthcare workers, remote medical education programs, Heals on Wheels for Integrative Health, digital healthcare technology and navigators, and community paramedics. The HOPE program provides treatment earlier in the course of illness to improve psychiatric outcomes with a focus on outreach and care to historically marginalized populations. Six Youth Summits introduced and engaged over 500 BIPOC youth to healthcare careers. Ten paid summer internships for junior and high school students were given as part of the Talent Garden initiative. Project ECHO held 293 virtual medical training sessions supporting 364 healthcare centers throughout Minnesota. Medical Education: Hennepin Healthcare has over 15 residency and fellowship training programs and is the primary teaching affiliate of the University of Minnesota and 60+ schools. Donations enhance training opportunities and residency programs, purchase equipment, and expand trauma prevention outreach, telemedicine, and rural health education. Two lectureships were established: the Jeffrey Morken Endowed Lectureship in Surgery, and the DiAngelis Family Endowed Lectureship in Dentistry. Clinical Research: Research priorities include addiction, health services, infectious disease/HIV, and acute care/trauma.
Current Goals
Caring for anyone at any time with any condition takes resources and a team of exceptional staff. Our unique position of being Minnesota's largest Level 1 Trauma Center and safety-net and public teaching hospital offers innovative ways to influence the health of our community through philanthropy. The Hennepin Healthcare Foundation has three overarching goals. 1) Financial Stability - The FY 2024 annual fundraising goal is $30,000,000. Four clinical focus areas will be Addiction Medicine, Mental Health, Trauma & EMS, and Maternal & Child Health. Threading all areas is a commitment to reducing health disparities; 2) Communication and Community Engagement -
Enhance organizational awareness and reach by leveraging marketing strategies to highlight the impact of generosity and inspire affinity, trust, and financial support from the community; and 3) Investment: Invest in the people, processes, and systems to allow us to achieve our Inspiration Campaign fundraising targets and establish groundwork for a successful philanthropic future and comprehensive campaign. Our goals align with the Hennepin Healthcare Systems strategic plans that include building a clinical programs strategy centered around service lines, inspiring the design of site of care spaces, and integrating technology, data, and analytics into how patients are served.
Community or Constituency Served
As the largest safety-net hospital in Minnesota, Hennepin Healthcare predominantly serves a historically marginalized and under-resourced low-income population, including those who are homeless, uninsured, and underinsured. We have an Immediate Food Support Program and help provide medical respite for persons experiencing homelessness. We serve many refugees and immigrants through a trauma-informed lens. In 2023, the racial and ethnic breakout of our patient population was as follows: 33.5 % White; 33.5% Black (African American or African); 22.8% Latine; 5.0% Asian; 3.0% Native American; 0.4% multi-racial, 0.3% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 0.9% other, and 0.6% declined/did not answer.
Hennepin Healthcare serves a very diverse patient population. In addition to English, Spanish, Somali, and Hmong as the top four spoken languages within our patient population, we offer interpreter services in 82 languages and have more than 15,000 monthly encounters. We have 87 interpreters on staff who cover 19 of the most common languages for our patients.
HCMC, Hennepin Healthcare System’s acute care hospital, is one of America’s Essential Hospitals, a group of more than 300 urban hospitals in the country committed to caring for low-income and vulnerable populations. Based on recent data, together with its fellow essential hospitals, HCMC helps deliver 16.5% of all uncompensated care nationally (roughly $6.9 billion per year).
Hennepin Healthcare is a Disproportionate Share Hospital, meaning that a large portion of our hospital services in the state are for people enrolled in public health insurance programs (Medicaid and Medicare) and uninsured people. Patient financial counselors help uninsured people enroll in MNsure or other public insurance plans and are reducing the number of uninsured patients. As part of its mission to ensure access to health care for all, HHS offers Hennepin Care, a financial assistance program for people not eligible for MNsure or other coverage. Core to our mission as a safety-net hospital is that we do not refuse care based on a patient's ability to pay.
Geographic Area Served
Hennepin Healthcare includes a 478-bed Level I Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center and acute care hospital (HCMC), an outpatient Clinic and Specialty Center, a large psychiatric program, Emergency Medical Services, a research institute, a philanthropic foundation (Hennepin Healthcare Foundation), and a network of community clinics serves three Minneapolis neighborhoods and the suburban communities of Brooklyn Park, Golden Valley, Richfield, and St. Anthony Village.
The hospital-based Clinic & Specialty Center features 26 primary and specialty care clinics under one roof, providing a wide range of medical care in one convenient location. In addition, advanced diagnostic and imaging services, cancer center, rehabilitation services, pharmacy, and surgery make the Clinic & Specialty Center a full-service healthcare destination.
The new Redleaf Center for Family Healing is an expansion of Hennepin Healthcare’s Mother-Baby Program, Minnesota’s first intensive mental health program for pregnant and postpartum mothers. We aim to provide the best mental health and parenting support for families across our communities.
Based on the number of patients who receive care at HCMC (the hospital) and its community clinics, Hennepin Healthcare’s primary and secondary service area includes 36 zip codes within the City of Minneapolis and the suburban communities of Brooklyn Park, Crystal, Golden Valley, Richfield, St. Anthony, and St. Louis Park. A tertiary service area is the entire state of Minnesota through our Poison Control Center, Level 1 Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center, Critical Burn Center, Kidney Transplants, ALS Center, Hyperbaric, and other unique services.
