Geared for Growth: Trillium Health Removes Barriers to Healthcare for LGBTQ+ Community in Greater Rochester
Trillium Health is a community health center serving members of the LGBTQ+ with medical services and additional support to remove barriers to accessing healthcare. President & CEO Jason Barnecut-Kearns was featured on Geared for Growth on Wednesday, August 14 as part of Greater Rochester Chamber’s ongoing partnership with 13WHAM/FOX Rochester. Barnecut-Kearns shared more about how they serve the community, and how they’re partnering with other organizations in Greater Rochester to continue growing and creating opportunities.
Trillium Health is a community health organization that has been working to provide healthcare services to individuals in the LGTBQ+ community and others since
the 1980s. “We started during he HIV crisis and we’ve really built on those roots that we created there,” Jason explained, “We have many service lines – we have primary care, we continue to service patients living with HIV, we do a lot around prevention of HIV, and we also have our GYN and pediatrics lines.” While their background is in servicing individuals in the LGBTQ+ community, they have grown over the past 40 years to serve all members of our community.
In addition to their healthcare services, what makes Trillium different from other organizations is the wraparound services they provide as well. “We identify barriers to getting healthcare, try to eliminate those, and then bring you in to ensure you continue to get healthcare,” Barnecut-Kearns shared. This includes services including housing, food pantry access, transportation, and more. Trillium is one of 1,500 community health centers providing these types of services around the nation to over 35 million patients annually.
Trillium Health is rapidly growing to serve more and more individuals in the Greater Rochester community. Over the past five years, their patient count has grown 70%, and is up 14% in the past year alone. Trillium is opening new clinics in the community to meet these needs, and are having an intentional focus on equitable hiring. “We always focus on hiring people that look like and have the lived experiences of the communities were serving, especially in the City of Rochester,” Jason shared. To build talent pipelines and create opportunities for these groups, Trillium is partnering with local colleges and universities to open doors to get more diverse individuals into the healthcare profession. They additionally partner with private organizations around Greater Rochester to provide trainings and education on LGBTQ+ health and diversity best practices.
To learn more about Trillium Health, visit TrilliumHealth.org.
Tune in to FOX Rochester every Wednesday at 8:45 AM to catch every segment of Geared for Growth and learn about rapidly growing Greater Rochester Chamber member businesses.