Healthy Helpful Insight Healthcare Institute

Owner: Latasha Lee, MSN, RN PHN

Business champion: Mary Jo Schifsky

Type of business: Health care education 

Website: Healthy Helpful Insight Healthcare Institute 

Address: 5701 Kentucky Avenue North, #155, Crystal, MN 55428

Phone: (217) 412-8231

Video: Latasha talks about her background, business and mission in this video.

For Latasha Lee, establishing Healthy Helpful Insight Healthcare Institute has been a labor of love many years in the making. The story started when Illinois-born Latasha, who had a congenital heart problem, paid regular visits to the hospital throughout her childhood. She recalls asking her mother, “Where are all the Black nurses?” That lack of diversity made an impression on her. Later, Latasha and her older sister, Subrina, joined Job Corps in Ohio, trained as certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and attended junior college together. But in the late 1990s, Subrina started having seizures; she was eventually diagnosed with lupus, and, sadly, died in 2009. Latasha carried on, continuing her education and earning a master’s degree in nursing. The sisters had dreamed of starting a CNA school together, and Latasha recently opened the Healthy Helpful Insight Healthcare Institute as a living memorial to Subrina. (See WCCO’s story about Latasha’s journey.) “She wanted me to do it,” Latasha says, who shared that her sister appeared in her dreams to urge her on. “I want to give back and help people. There are many Black people who want to get into nursing – they just need a nudge.” 

Quotes:

“I am paying it forward to the next generation. My vision for the business in the long term? I would like to have more than one school. I also want to offer health and wellness activities and classes for the community. Next year, I want to start a scholarship in my sister’s honor: the Subrina Mays Memorial Scholarship.”

—Latasha Lee

“I’m in small business development, and right now I share resources about finances and where we might find some money. I’m a cheerleader on the side. Latasha’s mission is excellent, and she has a real chance of success, but it’s hard to be on your own ... We need hundreds and hundreds of health care workers. Latasha can help with that.”

—Mary Jo Schifsky