Paramedic · Healthcare Executive · Author · Founder of SynquUp

Healthcare has been my career. Helping people navigate it has become my purpose.

Paramedic since 1991. More than three decades across emergency medicine, oncology, infectious disease and care coordination. Founder of SynquUp™, built so families never have to face the healthcare system unprepared.

Be Proactive. Not Reactive.

Read my story ▶ Watch the welcome video

1991Licensed paramedic, and still caring for people today

35+Years in emergency care, oncology, infectious disease and care coordination

13Years leading operations across an outpatient oncology network

170+Pages in each Emergency Life Binder™ system

Why this work matters

I've seen extraordinary medicine. I've also seen how lost people get on the other side of it.

Patients and families are expected to understand insurance, medications, referrals, treatment options and major decisions, often during the hardest moments of their lives.

I believe we can make that easier. That's why I created SynquUp™.

Chuck Kinney seated at a desk with his hands folded

From the front lines

Three decades on every side of care

Photos from Chuck's career as a paramedic, field medic and instructor

Moments from the field: the emergency department, EMS and deployment.

Early 1990s
EMS in rural East Tennessee
Started on the ambulance and became an instructor coordinator, teaching EMT, IV and paramedic classes, plus ACLS, BLS, BTLS, PHTLS, PALS and many other continuing education courses.
1994–2004
Hospital emergency department
Worked as a paramedic with a scope much like an RN's, learning from physicians, PAs, nurses and pharmacists in nearly every specialty, including IVs and critical procedures for newborns, children, and people with cancer and sickle cell disease.
Mid-1990s
Lead paramedic for President and Mrs. Carter
Led the medical team for President Jimmy Carter and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter during a Habitat for Humanity build.
Field
Paramedic and field supervisor
Served in one of the busiest EMS systems in the country.
2006
Deployed to Iraq
Served as a subcontracted medic, with a scope much like a physician assistant's.
2007
Oncology, hematology and infectious disease
Joined an oncologist and hematologist in rural Georgia whose practice also cared for people with infectious diseases, in an area with few other options. Direct patient care across all three, plus referrals, preauthorizations and billing.
13 years
Leading an oncology network
Stayed through the practice's acquisition by a larger health system and led operations across an outpatient oncology network, including through COVID-19.
Then
Senior Director of Care Coordination
Oversaw referrals, community outreach, social services and care coordination programs for people living with HIV.
Today
Founder of SynquUp™
Building plain-language tools, books and binders so every family knows where everything is when it matters most.

When healthcare became personal

“Some of the most important lessons I've learned about healthcare didn't come from being a healthcare professional. They came from being a son.”

When my parents, Chuck and Sue Kinney, faced serious illness, I saw healthcare from a very different seat. I knew the system, and I still found it hard to navigate for my own family.

My father was a veteran, a firefighter and EMT for more than 50 years, and a nationally accredited fire investigator for more than 15 years. He's my hero, and the reason I found my way into emergency medicine. My mother spent more than 30 years in a county Veterans Affairs office, helping veterans and their families get the benefits they had earned, done right and completed accurately.

They taught me what it means to walk beside someone through a system that wasn't built to be simple. Much of what I've built grew from one question: what do I wish I could have placed in their hands when they needed it? That's what I hope to place in yours.

This is dedicated to my parents, Chuck and Sue Kinney.

What I built