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Medical-Legal Partnerships: Investing in Social Services as a Core Strategy for Healthcare

An Effective Practice

Description

Medical-Legal partnerships use lawyers as specialists in a healthcare settings. This enables patients to have legal support and on-site free consults alongside clinical and non-clinical staff. This partnership can help recognize legal issues that may negatively affect medical outcomes. One such instance is with asthma patients and using a LegalHealth partnership to identify the legal requirements to demand landlords to clear apartments of rodents, bugs, mold, and water and structural damage - which were causing adverse health outcomes in these asthma patients.

Goal / Mission

New York City LegalHealth is a fruitful partnership that operates in 11 clinics of the city's public hospitals. One example is by supporting individuals in tenant-landlord disputes.

Impact

With an average of $225 per case, LegalHealth was able to effectively demand fixes in asthma patients' living conditions. This impact directly resulted in a 90% drop in emergency room visits and hospital admissions for this asthma patient group.

Results / Accomplishments

In this NYC partnership with LegalHealth, the legal staff was able to legally support patients with aspects of their housing conditions that were leading to poor health outcomes and frequent emergency room visits and hospital admissions. With the utilization of the legal team as on-site free aid to patients, clinics are able to help solve specific issues that negatively impact asthma patients' health such as mold, poor ventilation, and bug infestations. These accomplishments lead to a high decrease in repeat clinic activity with low monetary costs.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
New York City LegalHealth
Primary Contact
Eveline van Beek
917-200-1532
evelinevanbeek@kpmg.com
https://www.kpmg.us/bios/v/van-beek-eveline.html
Topics
Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Community / Community & Business Resources
Economy / Housing & Homes
Organization(s)
New York City LegalHealth
Source
KPMG Institute
Date of publication
Mar 2018
Geographic Type
Urban
Location
New York City
For more details
https://institutes.kpmg.us/content/dam/institutes/...
Target Audience
Children, Teens, Adults

Related Promising Practices

  1. Medical-Legal Partnership
  2. Medical Legal Partnerships: Embedding Civil Legal Aid Services in Care for High-Utilizing Patients
  3. Rural medical-legal partnership and advocacy: a three-year follow-up study.
  4. Environmental Improvements Brought by the Legal Interventions in the Homes of Poorly Controlled Inner-City Adult Asthmatic Patients
  5. Rideshare-Based Medical Transportation for Medicaid Patients

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An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.