Advocate Trinity Hospital Opens Walk-In Clinic

Advocate Trinity Hospital has opened a walk-in clinic at 2301 E. 93rd St., suite 201. The clinic is an answer to listening sessions with the community. PHOTO PROVIDED BY ADVOCATE TRINITY HOSPITAL.
Advocate Trinity Hospital has opened a walk-in clinic at 2301 E. 93rd St., suite 201. The clinic is an answer to listening sessions with the community. PHOTO PROVIDED BY ADVOCATE TRINITY HOSPITAL.

Advocate Trinity Hospital Opens Walk-In Clinic

By Tia Carol Jones

Advocate Trinity has opened a new walk-in clinic to help serve community members with non-emergency symptoms. The clinic, which is located at 2301 E. 93rd St., suite 201, is one of the developments from a series of community meetings the hospital hosted between March and April.

Dr. Michelle Y. Blakely, President of Advocate Trinity Hospital, said the goal of the listening sessions were to hear from the community how to improve healthcare on the Southeast side of Chicago. There were more than 350 community members who attended those meetings.

 During those meetings, community members were asking for access to preventative care, support and health education and they wanted to be better heard and understood.   They wanted providers to be more intentional in how they listen to the community. They also discussed the social drivers of health, which is access to food, access to employment, access to safety in the community, these are big factors in overall wellness.

In a letter that was sent out on May 1st, Blakely thanked community members for attending the meetings and providing their input and outlined some of the developments the hospital would be working on based on that input. Another thing the community said is that healthcare is expensive.

The clinic is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Patients ages 2 and older can be seen at the clinic for concerns, basic screenings, and diagnostics, without an appointment.

“We heard from our community, and we wanted to jump on it right away. We have been able to create a clinic across the street from the Trinity Hospital, that offers faster care for patients who have low acuity, non-emergency kinds of needs,” Blakely said.

Blakely said the walk-in clinic is a huge asset for the hospital because one of the things they heard from the community is that they were coming to the emergency room because that was what was available to them. By having them walk-in to the clinic, it takes the stress off the emergency department because now someone with signs and symptoms that are a little less severe, they can have their needs met in a timelier manner. In the emergency department, those with the most severe symptoms are prioritized because the goal is to make sure those patients are going to be OK.

Blakely has already received testimonials from patients that the walk-in clinic structure is working perfectly. They shared that they were able to walk-in, see someone in a timely manner, get a prescription and walk out the door, without a long wait.

With some of the other input from the community, Blakely said those things are on the hospital’s radar and it is continuing to design plans for those. Some of it is already in the works, for example, there are already medical staff who look like the community.

“Our challenge is to get them out in front of the community, so the community knows who they are and can see who they are,” Blakely said. She added the hospital is also working on strategies on how it shares information more broadly. “We hear you and we’re working as fast as we can to be responsive to what we’re hearing from our community.”

Advocate Trinity will continue to provide updates on the work it is doing. For those updates, visit MyVoiceMyHealth.com. This is also where people can provide their feedback.

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