Trinity College, Hartford HealthCare partner to provide student health services - Journal Inquirer

HARTFORD — Trinity College and Hartford HealthCare are partnering to provide the school’s students with increased access to services, including recovery and performance enhancement services at the Bone & Joint Institute near Trinity on the Hartford Hospital campus.

Trinity and Hartford HealthCare officials say the partnership will be beneficial to both organizations, particularly in helping to draw student athletes to Trinity.

At a news conference in the lobby of Hartford Hospital’s Education and Resource Center on Monday, Hartford HealthCare President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Flaks said the partnership formalizes a longstanding relationship between the two organizations, and opens the health system’s many services to Trinity students.

“This unparalleled collaboration will extend the vast array of clinical services and expertise of Hartford HealthCare’s top-flight clinicians to Trinity College students, offering them access to high-quality, world-class health care,” he said.

The partnership, which commences July 1 and will last at least three years, will provide students with access to primary care, behavioral health care, and specialty care. It also will be a benefit to student athletes, who will be able to recover from injuries at the Bone & Joint Institute, which offers orthopedic services, sports medicine, and access to sports psychologists and nutritionists.

Flaks said access to the Bone & Joint Institute, which he said is “as sophisticated a musculoskeletal health center as there is in the country,” would set Trinity apart from other schools.

“It’ll make a huge difference,” he said. “It’ll be part of how they recruit people from around the world.”

Trinity College President Joanne Burger-Sweeney said the partnership is the third time the college has teamed with Hartford HealthCare in recent months. The two organizations recently partnered to establish the “Southside Institutions Partnership Alliance,” an effort to restore economic vitality and quality of life in south-central Hartford, and in April they launched a digital health accelerator in Trinity’s Constitution Plaza location.

Burger-Sweeney said the costs of the partnership were “worked out behind the scenes,” but said the partnership comes at no additional cost to students. She said students still will go to same campus health center for basic needs, so many probably won’t notice a difference until they see the “depth of care” they receive.

Under the agreement, Hartford HealthCare has agreed to take on members of Trinity’s existing health center staff, Burger-Sweeney said.

A neuroscientist by training, Burger-Sweeney said she is especially excited about students having access to Hartford HealthCare’s behavioral health offerings, noting that student mental health has become a focus of college presidents around the country.

“When we think about higher education at Trinity College, we think about educating the whole person,” she said. “That comes with academics, but that also comes with health and well-being, and we think the partnership with Hartford HealthCare is going to support that whole person that is our Trinity student.”

Burger-Sweeney said that for a partnership to be long lasting, it has to be mutually beneficial, which she said the organizations have found with each new partnership.

“Each year, we come up with a different layer to the partnership that benefits both of our institutions,” she said.

Flaks agreed, saying that in addition to the benefits Trinity will reap from the partnership, the health system’s community of medical professionals will be inspired to “strive to higher levels of expertise” and involvement in its existing academic partnerships with the college.

“Our ambition is the more we can support and strengthen Trinity College, the better it is for this geography, this region, and it ultimately strengthens our organization,” he said.

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