Vivent Health opens new downtown Milwaukee clinic

Vivent Health’s new downtown Milwaukee clinic has officially opened.

Located at the corner of North Sixth Street and West Fond du Lac/McKinley Avenue in the Haymarket neighborhood, the new location will provide a much larger space to treat the roughly 3,700 clients the nonprofit serves each year in Milwaukee, while also providing greater accessibility to many of its patients in highest need of social supports.

The Milwaukee-based HIV/AIDS health care organization, formerly known as AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, has clinics in Austin, Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City and throughout Wisconsin. Its downtown Milwaukee clinic had long been located in a four-story building at 820 N. Plankinton Ave. The new location was chosen for its proximity to an area with the highest prevalence of people living with or at-risk of contracting HIV in the entire state, and because, at one story, the building was more conducive to providing truly integrative care through the nonprofit’s “HIV Medical Home.”

Vivent Health operates a nationally recognized “HIV Medical Home” model, which not only provides HIV patients with health care services, but also the kind of wrap-around social services needed to address social determinants such as access to healthy food, assistance with housing issues, and help with legal issues.

At 46,277 square feet, the new location will provide 33% more space for the clinic to respond to an increased demand for HIV care, treatment, and prevention services. The new location doubles the number of exam and behavioral health rooms and increases the sizes of the pharmacy and food pantry. It also boasts about 20 dental exam rooms.

The added space will allow the clinic to serve 1,000 more patients. Renovations took about a year to complete and cost $9 million. Quorum served as the architects on the project, and TriNorth was the general contractor. The building, which sits across the street from where the new Milwaukee Public Museum will be constructed, had previously been used by Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Wrap-around care

With patients now able to access all of their care and assistance on one floor, the “HIV Medical Home” is expected to operate even more smoothly than it did in the more compartmentalized, four-story building, said Brandon Hill, the organization’s interim president and chief executive officer.

“Now everything is accessible on one floor. We have a central waiting room that is now connected to all the services we provide – from dental care to the food pantry,” Hill said. “The old building was not conducive to a lot of growth. And, in an integrative care setting, it didn’t allow for a lot of movement.”

Having patients be able to easily access the supports they need is critical to the medical home model, which focuses on making sure HIV patients’ basic needs are met so they can have the wherewithal to properly manage their condition.

“Today, HIV is a managed, chronic condition, but it does require adherence to medication to have a long, healthy life, as well as non-transmission,” Hill said. “When you look at the factors that influence adherence, housing stability and food security are contributing factors as well as access to medical care. Right now, new instances of HIV are happening in areas where there is economic vulnerability, and where there are disparities in food and housing stability.”

Expertise

Having a central medical home isn’t just important for HIV patients who face economic challenges, it’s also important for more affluent people with the condition.

“People with HIV are living longer. Two years ago, there was a person with HIV who turned 100. When you are managing a chronic condition, you have to look at all of the other factors that will allow someone to lead a long, healthy life. So, Vivent’s integrative care model is one that actually allows people to do that,” Hill said. “Pretty much all of our staff are specialized in HIV care and prevention, even the dentists. Dental is one of those areas where there is potential for discrimination, because other dentists are often unsure about treating someone living with HIV. So having folks here, whose expertise is in infectious disease management, you are able to develop protocols that take into account someone’s condition.

Vivent is supported through a combination of foundation and individual philanthropy, medical reimbursement, pharmacy revenue, and federal grants, Hill said. About half of its patients are on Medicaid, and roughly 14% are uninsured. The nonprofit also provides care for some privately insured patients, Hill said, including many who chose to fill their prescriptions through Vivent’s pharmacy as a way to support the clinic.

As part of its HIV prevention services, the clinic also dispenses pre-exposure prophylaxis or PREP, which is an anti-viral medication that can prevent contracting HIV. The drug is often used by people who have long-term partners who have the condition and is about 90% effective when taken regularly.

Growing organization

The Vivent brand emerged in early 2020 as the result of the mergers of AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain CARES and St. Louis Effort for AIDS. That same year, the organization also acquired AIDS Services of Austin.

Now the second-largest HIV/AIDS health care provider in the country, Vivent continues to be headquartered in Milwaukee. It operates 14 locations across Wisconsin and in Austin, Denver, St. Louis and Kansas City. In 2021, it reported serving just under 13,400 patients. On Monday, a spokesperson said the entity now serves around 15,000 patients a year, about 4,500 of them in Wisconsin.

Vivent prides itself on that fact that 95% of its patients have achieved viral suppression, meaning the amount of HIV in their blood is very low, allowing those individuals to live a normal life with a more typical life expectancy, and much lower risk of transmitting the virus. That’s compared to a national average of 88% of HIV/AIDS patients having an undetectable viral load.

CEO search

Vivent is still searching for a permanent president and CEO to lead the organization, following former president and CEO, Michael Gifford’s departure last August. Gifford, who had worked for the nonprofit for 24 years – 10 of them as CEO – stepped down after news surfaced that the nonprofit had received three complaints involving Gifford’s interactions with employees. It did not specify when the alleged incidents that prompted the complaints occurred.

Hill, who was hired in July 2022 to serve as executive vice president and chief operating officer, was named interim CEO shortly after Gifford resigned.

A spokesperson for Vivent said Tuesday that the organization hoped to announce the results of its CEO search later this summer.