Eos in the News
Integrating Law and Medicine for Better Health Care – and Better Policy
Among the many problems caused by economic instability, inadequate housing and food uncertainty, not least is the havoc wreaked on patient health. Financial circumstances can cause or contribute to illness, interfere with treatment and recovery and impede access to medical care. But addressing these barriers to health is often a matter of legal intervention and advocacy – neither of which is a typical part of the health care model.
Closing this critical gap is the work of the Eos-funded Medical-Legal Partnership | Boston (MLP/Boston). As recently featured in the Boston Globe, MLP/Boston brings medical and legal resources together to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, and to ensure that patients’ basic needs are met.
The originator of the concept that evolved into what is now MLP/Boston and its national arm, the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership (NCMLP), is Dr. Barry Zuckerman, head of Boston Medical Center’s Pediatric Department. “In my 35 years of practicing pediatrics in Boston,” Dr. Zuckerman is quoted as saying to the Globe, “lawyers have been the missing link to really improve the health and well-being of the children.”
The education of front-line health care providers about financial and other external impediments to health is an integral part of the organization’s approach. Clinicians are trained to screen for and recognize societal factors, and then to diagnose and treat in consultation with a legal partner. “Lawyers connected to a hospital or clinic,” explains the Globe, “might write a letter encouraging a landlord to replace moldy carpeting that’s triggering asthma attacks.” Attorneys might aid an elderly person being abused in a nursing home, or help a cancer patient win transfer to a less-strenuous job.
The involving of health care providers in promoting policy change is another defining aspect of MLP/Boston’s efforts. The organization highlights the connections between poverty, law, policy and health by way of research and evaluation projects, reports, publications and the submission of testimony to legislators and policy makers. As Ellen M. Lawton, executive director of NCMLP says in the Globe article, “The front-line physicians who are seeing vulnerable families and adults every day get insights into what the policy tools might be.”
MLP/Boston’s direct intervention has improved the lives of numerous local patients. As the founding site of the growing nationwide network of medical-legal partnerships, the organization has great and growing potential to transform the health care delivery model for vulnerable populations everywhere.
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