Sixteenth Street health center, Froedtert partner to expand clinic on Milwaukee's near south side

Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers plans to expand its flagship clinic on Milwaukee's near south side, with the help of a $4.7 million gift from Froedtert Health that the health system announced Tuesday.

The expansion project, which will cost an estimated $9 million, will add a 21,000-square-foot addition to the north side of the main clinic at 1032 S. Chavez Drive. The additional space will allow the clinic to serve thousands more patients per year and will add pharmacy and mental health services to the site, according to a press release issued by Sixteenth Street. It's projected to open in fall of next year.

"It will make a huge impact for our patients, clients and our community," Julie Schuller, a physician and president and CEO of Sixteenth Street, said Tuesday.

The main clinic on South Chavez Drive is one of three full-service clinics that Sixteenth Street operates in Milwaukee. Sixteenth Street also operates a full-service clinic in downtown Waukesha.

The clinics provide primary care, behavioral health care and other services primarily to low-income, Hispanic patients who are covered by Medicaid programs, such as BadgerCare Plus, or who are uninsured. They serve more than 40,000 patients each year. Many of the clinics' patients are Spanish-speaking or prefer using a language other than English during visits.

In addition to the gift from Froedtert, the expansion will be funded by grants and other money from the state and federal government.

"This is an exciting addition and an important site toward reducing health disparities in our community," said Dr. Mark Lodes, of Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin, at a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday at the site.

Froedtert has a longstanding relationship with Sixteenth Street. In 2021, Froedtert donated $3.7 million to Sixteenth Street to help fund the opening of a clinic on West National Avenue that's focused on behavioral health care and substance abuse services.

Health center officials hope that the new pharmacy at the Chavez Drive location will help patients stay on their medications and will improve communication between patients' doctors and pharmacists.

Health center officials also saw an opportunity to bring substance use disorder treatment to the main clinic, including counseling and group therapy, Schuller said. Those services are available at its clinic on South 27th Street in Milwaukee and its clinic in downtown Waukesha.

The neighborhoods located around its main clinic have seen the most drug overdoses in the county, according to data published online by Milwaukee County. The 53204 ZIP code where the main clinic is located, recorded the most fatal overdoses — more than 300 — of any ZIP code in the county since 2015. The neighboring ZIP code, 53215, was close behind.

“We’re located right in the heart of that," Schuller said.

As part of the expansion, Sixteenth Street plans to hire five additional mental health professionals, including social workers, psychologists and substance use disorder specialists, spokeswoman Lisa Ehlke said.

The health center also plans to hire two pharmacists and six pharmacy technicians over the next several years to staff the on-site pharmacy, Ehlke said.

The pharmacy will make it convenient for patients to pick up their medications right after their doctor's appointment, Schuller said.

It will also make it easier for doctors and pharmacists to share information about whether a patient is taking their medication properly or is picking up their refills on a regular basis, she said. If a patient is responding poorly to a medication or isn't picking up their refills, the doctor and pharmacist can more easily coordinate.

"They can have a conversation about what extra (help) might that patient need? Might they need more education or those medications delivered to their home, maybe?" Schuller said.

Sixteenth Street also will hold group pregnancy classes at the main clinic on Chavez Drive, according to the press release.

The expansion also will allow Sixteenth Street to move its lead program, which tests more than 6,000 Milwaukee children for lead poisoning each year, to the Chavez Drive location. It also plans to move its Women, Infant and Children, or WIC, program to the main location. That program is for low-income women and children and is designed to support expecting and new mothers through nutritional counseling, lead screenings, breast feeding counseling and other help.

Sixteenth Street bought the building at 1016-1018 S. Chavez Drive, just north of its main clinic, last year for about $200,000. The health center plans to raze the building in the coming months to make way for the new building, which will be connected to the existing clinic.

Demolition has yet to begin, but Schuller hopes construction will begin next month.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Sixteenth Street health clinic to expand on Milwaukee's south side