Advocacy Champions

MMA recognizes Advocacy Champions every month.

Learn about our current champion, as well as our past champions, listed to the right.

July 2025 Advocacy Champion

Tyler Winkelman MD, MSc  

Division Director, General Internal Medicine, Hennepin Healthcare
Co-Director, Health, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice Lab, HHRI
Associate Professor, Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Minnesota Medical School 

1.    Why is being an advocate so important to you?
As a clinician and researcher, I believe advocacy is a tool for sharing clinical perspective and evidence to inform policy decisions that impact the health of our community. 

2.    What health-care related issue(s) have you advocated for over the past year?
I have advocated for two key topics over the past year: 1) Medicaid funding for the Collaborative Care Model, an evidence-based model of integrated primary care behavioral health; and 2) Improved healthcare in Minnesota jails and prisons with a focus on the 1115 Waiver Reentry Process and tools to increase access to medications for opioid use disorder. 

3.    What advice would you offer to others who are interested in advocacy?
Advocacy is a team sport. As clinicians, it’s critical we partner with policy experts and coalitions to pass policies that improve the health of our communities.