Capsules

HealthPartners Announces New Como Park Clinic

At its recent annual meeting, HealthPartners announced that it was moving forward with a major new construction project in St. Anthony Park. The new facility is scheduled to open in the fall of 2027. It will replace the existing Como Clinic, the first HearthPartners clinic that opened in 1957, when the company was called Group Health. The new facility will be well over 50% larger than the existing clinic and cost around $80 million. The new Como Clinic will significantly expand services, including primary care, urgent care, pediatrics, dentistry and cardiology. In addition, the clinic will introduce new services, including a new TRIA Orthopedics Clinic and Urgent Care, endocrinology and OB-GYN services. Advanced CT and MRI capabilities will be added, making it one of the most advanced urgent care sites in the east metro. 

“Our first clinic opened on Como Avenue nearly 70 years ago with a simple but powerful idea: care should be local, accessible and affordable for the people in our community,” said Andrea Walsh, president and CEO of HealthPartners. “This new Como Clinic honors that legacy while investing in the future of St. Paul. It brings more services, more convenience and more coordinated care to patients who rely on us every day. We’re proud to be able to continue to reinvest in a place that is so important.”

Groundbreaking for the new clinic is scheduled for this summer. Plans include approximately 250 parking spaces, with design options that explore how parking is integrated into the site — including the potential for a structured parking deck. The building itself is expected to shift from its retro triangular layout to a more navigable square design. The project is currently in the city’s site plan review, giving community members a chance to learn more and share feedback as plans move forward.

Northfield Hospital + Clinics purchases Allina Health Northfield Clinic

In a move designed to address the growing pressures on rural health care and enhance the partnership between the two organizations, Northfield Hospital + Clinics (NH+C) and Allina Health recently announced that NH+C would purchase the Allina Health Northfield Clinic. The process is scheduled for completion by the end of September and should be seamless for patients.

NH+C will be welcoming 30 clinicians and additional staff members from Allina Health, who will continue to care for patients and become part of NH+C’s independent health care system.

“It’s exciting for NH+C to unite primary care in Northfield and keep local the services that can be done in our community. This strengthens NH+C’s commitment to serve our full community with high-quality services for the entire lifespan,” said NH+C President and CEO Zander Abbott. “This affiliation agreement is an example of how two organizations can collaborate to create a stronger path forward together than either of us could do on our own. “

“This innovative agreement reflects Allina Health’s commitment to providing care close to home, and our reputation for excellence in specialty care,” said Bill Evans, chief medical group operations officer for Allina Health. “Health care today increasingly depends on collaboration to ensure resources are used effectively and patients have access to high‑quality care close to home. By aligning their strengths, NH+C and Allina Health are advancing a coordinated, patient‑centered approach that expands community‑based primary care while maintaining strong connections to specialty services and regional expertise.”

This agreement includes the clinic building and staff, and the family medicine, pediatrics, sports medicine and mental health practices. The proposed merger between Allina Health and Sutter Health will not affect the sale of the Allina Northfield clinic.

As part of this agreement, NH+C and Allina Health will formalize their long-standing partnerships in clinical service line care such as cardiology and neuroscience. It presents a real opportunity to show a new model in rural health care — an independent organization partnering with a larger system to better define rural health care creating success for both organizations — and for the community.

New East Lake Community Clinic Opens

The Southside East Lake Street Clinic, a new 30,000-square-foot, $35 million community health center recently opened its doors to patients. The clinic, part of the Southside Community Health Services organization founded in 1971, is located on the edge of the Midtown Phillips neighborhood, next door to the Midtown Global Market. Services are not free, but the clinic takes all types of insurance and offers a sliding fee discount program for people who are uninsured. The clinic’s services include pediatric and adult primary care, midwifery, a dental office, dietetics, X-rays, mammography and behavioral health programs. In the works are a pharmacy and a sexual violence healing center. “Every service line we do is intentionally designed and intentionally done to break down the barriers and make it easier for people to access health care,” said Sheila Kennedy, Southside’s medical director.

Built by Ryan Companies, the state-of-the-art facility was designed to meet the holistic needs of the community. It dramatically expands the capacity of Southside Community Health Services, allowing them to grow their patient base, extend operating hours and integrate a wide spectrum of health care services. Completion of the project is a powerful example of community partnership. It was brought to fruition through the architectural vision of 4RM+ULA and Perkins&Will and the project leadership of Classic Lake Consulting.

The clinic is designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), receiving federal funding to provide care to underserved and low-income populations. Many of the neighborhoods surrounding the new clinic have higher rates of residents below the poverty level than the city average of 17%. Midtown Phillips in particular has a poverty rate of almost 40%. The area is also home to higher percentages of residents who identify as Black, Hispanic and American Indian. The clinic is built on the site of the former Family Dollar store that was heavily damaged during the protests following the murder of George Floyd. David Ingold, executive director of the Midtown and East Phillips Neighborhood Association, noted that the clinic’s new location “is both closer to the thousands of immigrants, refugees, and low-income residents that live in the Phillips neighborhoods, and it is close to the updated rapid Metro Transit lines on Chicago (Avenue) and Lake Street.”

Legislature Approves HCMC Bailout Funding

Key funding to keep open Hennepin County Medical Center, Minnesota’s flagship trauma center and safety net hospital, emerged within the final hours of the 2026 session. The House voted late Sunday to adopt the conference committee report on HF4466/SF4612 and then passed the omnibus health and human services finance and policy bill 108-26. It passed shortly thereafter in a 35-32 vote by the Senate. Funding for HCMC is part of a nearly $660 million agreement between House and Senate leaders and Gov. Tim Walz. The bill allocates $205 million in direct stabilization funding for HCMC and creates a reserve account of up to $500 million that HCMC, and possibly other hospitals contending with financial burden due to uncompensated care, can draw from until 2031.

In addition to the hospital funding, legislators added language about oversight of Hennepin Healthcare. Hennepin County commissioners now serve as its leader after dissolving the corporate board last year. The bill establishes a new board that consists of 11 to 15 directors and includes 70% of members with the professional training and expertise needed to govern a health system and safety net hospital.

Gov. Tim Walz said “I’m just incredibly proud how we were able to continue to make the investments we know we need to make, whether it’s roads and bridges, education, Hennepin County Medical Center — that critical level one trauma center, dealing with the (federal) bill that came out of Congress that threw so much chaos into how we deal with Medicaid, food stamps and other things,” adding that the HCMC agreement is imperative. “I’m proud of what we did, but I want to be very cautious on this,” he said. “This is only the beginning of the health and the hospital crisis across the country.”

“While this certainly doesn’t include everything House DFLers wanted, it is a strong step forward on important issues while working in divided government,” said House DFL Caucus Leader Zack Stephenson (DFL-Coon Rapids). “Providing certainty and stability for HCMC was a necessity.

State Run Psilocybin Pilot Program Moves Forward

As the legislative session recently concluded, a bill to authorize the study of the use of psilocybin mushrooms to treat a wide range of serious behavioral health issues took important steps toward becoming law. The bill proposed a pilot program that would be open to 1,000 Minnesotans 21 or older with qualifying medical conditions like PTSD, chronic pain, substance use disorder and more. Several significant research projects have shown that psilocybin can relieve major depression, ease anxiety and even help with alcohol-use disorder. The pilot program would be managed under clinical supervision in a regulated environment. The state Office of Cannabis Management, which regulates legal adult-use sales of marijuana, would be the key oversight authority and evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The program is a recommendation of a task force that studied this issue.

“This program is a very conservative, slow entrance into this new area of psychedelic medicine,” said Rep. Andy Smith, DFL-Rochester. The bill has received rare and overwhelming bipartisan support, passing the House as part of broader health policy legislation by a vote of 114-15. The most recent session concluded before a Senate vote could occur, however, there is a good chance it will pass in the next session and which will start early in the next year.

Minnesota would be the fourth state in the country to legalize psychedelic mushrooms in supervised settings. Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon have similar laws. Supporters noted that the Trump Administration is open to further study of psychedelic mushrooms and that $50 million in federal money is on the table for research. Minnesota is well-positioned to qualify for some of this funding and the bill instructs the Office of Cannabis Management to seek those funds. “This is a really good pilot program, and it’s buoyed by the fact that the Trump administration came out and said that there’s a new openness to programs like this,” said Rep. Max Rymer, R-North Branch. “It’s a very careful entry into this.” He added, “The testimony that we heard firsthand, from especially a lot of our veterans, was that this was life-changing.”

Mayo Study Advances Early Pancreatic Cancer Detection

A recently published study by the Mayo Clinic found that, through a new artificial intelligence (AI) model, specialists could detect pancreatic cancer on routine abdominal CT scans up to three years before clinical diagnosis. The new research identifies signs of disease before tumors are visible, when curative treatment may still be possible. The findings come after a multiyear research effort to enable earlier detection of one of the deadliest cancers. They validate the new AI model using data and workflows that mirror clinical practice, including CT scans from multiple institutions, imaging systems and protocols.

Researchers analyzed nearly 2,000 CT scans, including scans from patients later found to have pancreatic cancer — all originally interpreted as normal. The system, called the Radiomics-based Early Detection Model (REDMOD), identified 73% of those prediagnostic cancers at a median of about 16 months before diagnosis — nearly double the detection rate of specialists reviewing the same scans without AI assistance.

The detection rate was even greater at earlier time points. In scans obtained more than two years before diagnosis, the AI identified nearly three times as many early cancers that would otherwise go undetected. Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers because it rarely causes detectable signs in its earliest stages. More than 85% of patients receive a diagnosis after the disease has already spread, and five-year survival rates remain below 15%, according to the National Cancer Institute. Projections show it will become the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. by 2030.

“The greatest barrier to saving lives from pancreatic cancer has been our inability to see the disease when it is still curable,” says Ajit Goenka, MD, the study’s senior author, and a Mayo Clinic radiologist and nuclear medicine specialist. “This AI can now identify the signature of cancer from a normal- appearing pancreas, and it can do so reliably over time and across diverse clinical settings.”

Researchers are advancing this work into clinical testing through Artificial Intelligence for Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection, or AI-PACED. This prospective study evaluates how clinicians can integrate AI-guided detection into care for patients at elevated risk. The study combines AI analysis of routine imaging with longitudinal follow-up to assess performance, including early detection, false positives and clinical outcomes.

U of M Expands Rural Residency Program

The University of Minnesota Medical School recently received approval from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to expand its rural physician training program. In so doing it has entered into an agreement with the Lakewood Health system to create the Lakewood Rural Family Medicine Residency Program. Residents will start the three-year program with one year of training in the North Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in North Minneapolis, followed by two years with the Lakewood Health System in Staples, Minnesota. The program will train two new family medicine physicians per year.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to train excellent family physicians at Lakewood. Our mission is to equip our graduates with the broad skills and deep knowledge necessary to provide high-quality comprehensive care to patients and families in underserved rural communities in Minnesota and beyond — and we cannot wait to get started,” said Alex Harsha Bangura, MD, residency program director and Lakewood Health System family medicine physician.

“This new residency program is a critical investment in the future of health care in Minnesota. By training physicians in rural communities, we’re not only expanding access to care where it’s needed most, but also increasing the likelihood that these doctors will build their careers and lives in Greater Minnesota communities like Staples,” said Shailey Prasad, MD, MPH, associate vice president for global and rural health for the Office of Academic Clinical Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Students can start applying to the program in September 2026, with the first cohort set to begin in the summer of 2027. This new program joins the Willmar Rural Family Medicine Residency Program and the Grand Itasca Rural Family Medicine Residency Program as the only rural family medicine training programs in Minnesota — creating new opportunities for medical students seeking specialized training in rural health care.