The soon-to-be president and chief executive officer at Trillium Health talks about his new position, the challenges he will have to face and how his 24-year career at Xerox will help him succeed in the job
By Mike Costanza
Trillium Health will soon gain a new president and chief executive officer. Jason Barnecut-Kearns, the nonprofit’s current senior vice president, chief financial officer and chief development officer, will transition into that role on July 1.
Born as AIDS Rochester in 1983, Trillium Health has grown into a community health center that provides affordable, nonjudgmental health care to all in Rochester and the Finger Lakes, including those in the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning and more) community.
It offers those services at five locations in Rochester, has about 230 employees and has a current budget of about $54 million.
The nonprofit served 10,912 patients in 2022, a 177% increase over the number it served five years ago.
Barnecut-Kearns was born in Britain, came to the Rochester area in 2003 on assignment from the Xerox Corporation, and decided to stay and become a U.S. citizen. He rose in Xerox’s ranks until March, 2018, when he joined Trillium Health as its chief financial officer (CFO).
For the past five years, he has overseen the nonprofit’s finances, facilities, procurement activities, grant management and donor engagement while performing other duties.
In Good Health interviewed Barnecut-Kearns regarding Trillium’s operations, the challenges it faces, and how it might overcome them.
Q. You came to the nonprofit world after a 25-year career with the Xerox Corporation that culminated in your rise to vice president of finance. What led you to join Trillium Health?
A. I’ve been connected with Trillium for many years. When I first came to the States 20 years ago, that was the time when I actually came out. Being comfortable and being oneself is critical to being the best that you can. As part of that, I joined Xerox’s employee resource group for the LGBT employees. Through that, I got connected to Trillium because we provided, on an annual basis during the holiday period, care boxes for the patients living with HIV. At the time it was named AIDS Rochester. As time went on, I actually joined the board of directors of Trillium. It was an organization I really wanted to support. Through being on the board, the opportunity of the CFO came up. To move from the corporate-shareholder focus to a mission-based organization was the best thing I’ve done.
Q. In brief, what is Trillium’s mission?
A. Trillium Health is a community health center. Our focus is really providing extraordinary care to the community, including the LGBTQ+ community. We welcome anybody. We don’t care about their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their race or their ethnicity. Anybody that walks through our doors, they deserve high quality care which is affordable, irrespective of their ability to pay.
Q. What did you bring to Trillium when you came on board in 2018?
A. I’ve always been focused on changing things. We know we can’t do the same things the way we’ve always done them. I thought, “Well this is something I could bring to Trillium.” I also thought I could bring to Trillium the business mindset and apply it to a nonprofit. We have to operate like a business.
Q. How did you use those skills to help Trillium establish the Center for Gynecological Care & Wellness?
A. When I first came on board, we were just on the journey of looking into acquiring pediatrics and women’s health practices to kind of expand our service lines and provide increased access. I kind of just jumped straight in to do the business case analysis. We stood up our new location in 2019.
Q. What are some of Trillium’s most important programs?
A. The main one is primary care. Here at Monroe Avenue, we focus on providing day-to-day primary care services. To complement our primary care, we do have a pediatrics service line (Pathway Pediatrics), and also a women’s health service line. We also focus on sexual health.
Q. How does Trillium focus on sexual health?
A. That’s about prevention and treatment of HIV and STIs [sexually transmitted infections], along with educating the community on why to get tested and getting individuals tested. Prevention is key to reducing HIV for the future and ending the epidemic. We provide excellent HIV care for those individuals living with HIV and those that are newly diagnosed.
Q. What are some of Trillium’s other important programs?
A. One that’s really been close to my heart over the last couple of years is our food pantry. We all know what’s going on in the economic environment—the cost of buying food has just been going up—and we know there’s a lot of food insecurity. Up to now, our food pantry was really funded by our organization. We just received more funding through some Monroe County American Rescue Plan [federal American Rescue Plan Act] dollars. It’s going to allow us to expand it, and then be able to serve more people. The total grant is about $4.9 million over four years.
Q. Will all of that grant go to your food pantry?
A. That’s actually to support our food pantry and our investment in a project that were calling “project access.” That’s where we’re investing in medical case managers that are going to be in each of our different entry points into the organization. They could be in the food pantry, they could be in our clinic, in our harm reduction sites, in our pharmacy. The purpose of these roles is really to understand the need of any individual walking through the door and then connect them to all of our services. My team designed the programs to expand the food pantry and to increase access to our services.
Q. Does Trillium offer financial assistance to those it serves?
A. We have a sliding-fee discount program. Depending on your income, your household size, we would discount any services. Also, we have a complementary charity care policy that’s a mechanism for us to use to cover the cost of services. If you have no insurance, we will still continue to see you. We can use that fund, as well, to offset the cost of your medications.
Q. What challenges does Trillium face at this time?
A. One of our key challenges is really workforce shortages. With two major [health care] systems in town, we’ve just got a lot of competition, especially with nursing staff. We’ve had to continuously look for new ways to attract nursing staff. Sign on bonuses and retention bonuses have been critical.
Q. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2024 budget includes changes to New York state’s 340B Prescription Drug Discount Program. Could that cost Trillium revenue?
A. That would take $5 million out of our programs. We’ve been really focused on working with the state to see how this can be done differently so that we keep this critical funding.
Trillium Health For more information about Trillium Health and its services, go to: www.trilliumhealth.org
Note: as of press time, New York State’s 2024 budget had not passed.