Resources
We publish research, tools, and lessons learned to help healthcare and legal organizations build and operate medical-legal partnerships and to help funders and policymakers advance medical-legal partnership activities. You can search those resources in the library below.
The library also links to journal articles, authored both by National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership staff and MLP practitioners and researchers from the field, that highlight ways medical-legal partnerships have improved patient health and well-being, the healthcare workforce, and healthcare delivery. A list of these articles with summaries are also available on the Peer-Reviewed Research page.
A Financial Case for a Medical-Legal Partnership: Reducing Lengths of Stay for Inpatient Care
A medical-legal partnership at an academic medical center (AMC) in North Carolina measured the detailed cost savings it provided to the AMC through the provision of legal services to its patients. MLP partners identified guardianship-related delays as the primary driver of extended lengths-of-stay at the AMC. When an MLP attorney was able to expedite guardianship proceedings, they reduced a patient’s lengths-of-stay by approximately 20 days. This led to an annual cost savings of $1,237,500 for the AMC based on an average cost of $825 per day for the hospital for 75 patients requiring guardianship services. Cost savings from these reduced lengths-of-stay alone exceeded MLP program costs by over threefold. The findings were published in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
A Data-Driven Approach to Optimizing Medical-Legal Partnership Performance and Joint Advocacy
In this paper, authors discuss ways in which use of data and quality improvement methods at a Cincinnati-based medical-legal partnership (MLP) have facilitated advocacy at both the individual and population levels as healthcare and legal teams collectively pursue better, more equitable outcomes. The MLP team saw a 38 percent reduction in hospitalizations among children referred to the MLP and were able to recover $1.36M in public benefits for patient-families. The MLP was also able to make system-level upgrades to housing (e.g., pest control, new roofs, and ventilation improvements) affecting 700 families after identifying patterns through data sharing and legal advocacy. And MLP partners streamlined SNAP enrollment processes at the county and state levels, driven by advocacy based on observed patterns of delayed benefit access. The findings were published in the The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
Environmental Scan of Medical-Legal Partnerships in Health Centers
In 2022, the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership and researchers at the George Washington University conducted an environmental scan of medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) operating in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Look-Alike programs. This report provides up-to-date information on MLP implementation or planning at health centers. It explains how these health centers use MLP to identify patients with health-related legal needs and make legal services accessible for low-income and underserved communities. It also sheds light on requirements for the sustainability of MLPs in health centers.
Impacts of a Medical-Legal Partnership on Clinical Capacity to Address Social Determinants of Health
A 16-question survey was emailed to 532 providers in a health system in South Carolina. The survey assessed clinicians’ perception of their role in addressing SDOH needs, the MLP’s impact on their clinical capacity, and the MLP’s ability to remedy patient SDOH needs. Providers who had referred to the MLP indicated higher levels of agreement that SDOH screenings were part of their clinical responsibility and had higher levels of agreement regarding comfort levels for completing SDOH screenings. Geriatric providers reported higher levels of agreement that the MLP reduced clinician stress than pediatric providers. Findings were published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
The Academic Medical-Legal Partnership
This report defines how the academic medical-legal partnership (A-MLP) adheres to and deviates from the 8 core elements of a medical-legal partnership and formally recognizes three components unique to A-MLP. Specifically, the team finds that A-MLPs focus on 1) educating pre-professional learners; 2) intentionally creating interprofessional learning environments; and 3) contributing to the evidence base for the MLP model as a health equity intervention.
Increasing Capacity to Address Health, Justice & Equity Through Partnerships
Supporting the millions of survivors of domestic/intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and exploitation, requires an intentional and immediate shift away from professional silos and towards multidisciplinary, collaborative health, justice, and equity approaches. This guide helps health centers, domestic violence programs, and civil legal aid organizations leverage their respective skill sets to close access gaps by addressing survivors’ myriad of health and social needs, eliminate risk factors through prevention programs, and improve overall outcomes for individuals and communities.