Capacity & Sustainability

Dr. David Keller, Medical Director of Family Advocates of Central Massachusetts, discusses how the life course perspective and social determinants of health are central to community pediatrics, including MLPs. Dr. Keller also discusses MLP team relationships.

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A diagram of medical organizations.

The Medical-Legal Partnership for Children | Toledo issued a report to the community in 2010 which shares patient-clients stories, impact statistics and information about their partnership.

To successfully partner with one another, lawyers and healthcare providers must first learn how the other profession works. This can be one of the most challenging aspects of working at an MLP.

This webinar is designed as a primer for MLP attorneys. It provides organizational charts for hospitals and health centers and an overview of where vulnerable people receive their healthcare. Panelists discuss key roles in the healthcare system, offer suggestions of training venues to target, and highlight key terminology.

Presenters:

• Megan Sandel, MD, MPH, Medical Director, National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership
• Ellen Lawton, Esq., Executive Director, National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership
• Bob Pettignano, MD, Director, Medical Affairs, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spaulding and Medical Director, HeLP

A brochure from the Medical-Legal Assistance for Families program in San Antonio, TX describing medical-legal partnership services.

Article describes medical-legal partnership model in which advocacy resources are sited in the clinical setting to improve the health of low-income families and children. The MLP approach is designed especially to change the culture and improve the quality of care in
pediatric settings across the country in order to prevent health and developmental problems in children. By encouraging pediatricians to look beyond the medical needs of their patients, and incorporate “legal treatment” for problems associated with unmet basic needs that impact child health, MLP seeks nothing less than to change the practice of pediatrics.

CITATION:
The Family Advocacy Program: A Medical-Legal Collaborative to Promote Child Health and Development.  Management Information Exchange Journal.  Summer 2003.  E Lawton.

In the effort to create effective policies and programs to address social disparities in health, allies outside the health sector are crucial.  Letter to the editor highlights the inclusion of attorneys as part of the public health team.

CITATION:
It Takes Lawyers to Deliver Health Care.  American Journal of Public Health.  2005; 95: 245 - 249.  ME Northridge.

ABSTRACT:

As oncology care is evermore provided in an ambulatory setting, oncology treatment teams are forced to confront family and financial issues that may expedite or impede patient treatment. An on-site, specialized attorney can intervene to address these issues before a crisis develops that interferes with cancer treatment.

ABSTRACT:

This medical–legal model is taking hold in resource-poor settings or resource-poor countries, including support from a new initiative through the Soros-funded Open Society Institute. Its benefits should have ripple effects well beyond the health and well-being of individual families and children. Firstly, collaboration among lawyers and healthcare providers constituency for related efforts ranging from human rights campaigns to legislative advocacy. Secondly, identifying and dealing with violations of laws that emanate from a human rights framework will add teeth to those laws and that framework. This in turn will ultimately promote a wider embracing of the rule of law as a universal standard.