Annual NCMLP Awards Honor Dept. of Justice, NYC Health + Hospitals & Programs, Practitioners in Ohio, Washington, D.C., Delaware & Iowa
This year’s Medical-Legal Partnership awards honored the Department of Justice, NYC Health + Hospitals, MLP programs in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., and advocates from Community Legal Aid Society in Delaware and the Iowa Primary Care Association. All awards were given by the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership and were presented on April 7, 2016, as part of the MLP Summit in Indianapolis, Indiana.
2016 MLP Leadership Award
The Office for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice and New York City Health + Hospitals were honored with the 2016 Medical-Legal Partnership Leadership Award during the annual Medical-Legal Partnership Summit in Indianapolis. The award was established in 2010 and is given annually to recognize an individual or group whose leadership, vision and hard work have significantly advanced and strengthened the medical-legal partnership movement to reach people and communities in need.
Over the last year, the Office for Access to Justice (ATJ) has partnered with MLP leaders for a wide range of convenings; educated Access to Justice leaders about the upstream role of MLP, and most significantly, used the creation of the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable as an opportunity to champion MLP with federal policymakers. ATJ is building on the strength of the MLP work being carried out by the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, to cultivate additional federal agency champions, unlock potential federal and other resources, and place MLP at the center of the ATJ strategy to meet the needs of vulnerable Americans.
While accepting the award on behalf of ATJ, Deputy Director Maha Jweied spoke about the connections between health and justice and the importance of the health and legal communities continuing to work together, adding that, “Some of the best evidence of civil legal aid impact has come from medical-legal partnerships.”
Deputy Director Maha Jweied accepting the 2016 MLP Leadership Award on behalf of ATJ. Pictured with Megan Sandel, Ellen Lawton and Joel Teitelbaum from the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership. Photo Credit: Christopher Whonsetler. WhonPhoto
New York City Health + Hospitals was honored for its leadership as the first public hospital system to commit to medical-legal partnership in all of its institutions. Its partnership with LegalHealth, a division of the New York Legal Assistance Group, has been transformative for patients, for the New York community, and for the broader healthcare landscape. Its unprecedented commitment to addressing the social determinants of health through integration of legal care, as well as a recent op-ed by President and CEO Raju Ramanathan about why health systems should invest in medical-legal partnership, are having a national ripple effect across peer institutions and allies.
Randall Mark, Chief of Staff to the President and CEO, accepted the award on behalf of NYC Health + Hospitals, which was presented by Randye Retkin, Director of Legal Health. During his remarks, Mr. Randall spoke to the role lawyers can play in helping address the health of patients, noting that, “NYC Health and Hospitals has no greater ally than LegalHealth in meeting our patients' social needs.”
Randall Mark, Chief of Staff to the President and CEO, accepting the 2016 MLP Leadership Award on behalf of NYC Health + Hospitals. Also pictured: Randye Retkin from LegalHealth (center) and staff from the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership. Photo Credit: Christopher Whonsetler. WhonPhoto
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice works within the Department, across federal agencies, and with state, local, and tribal justice system stakeholders to increase access to counsel and legal assistance and to improve the justice delivery systems that serve people who are unable to afford lawyers. ATJ also serves as the staff of the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable. NYC Health + Hospitals is an integrated healthcare system of hospitals, neighborhood health centers, long-term care facilities, nursing homes and home care providers — the public safety net healthcare system of New York City.
2016 Outstanding Medical-Legal Partnership Award
The Cincinnati Child Health-Law Partnership (Child HeLP) in Ohio and Whitman-Walker Health in Washington, D.C. were honored with the 2016 Outstanding MLP Award. The award was established in 2011, and is given annually to recognize medical-legal partnerships that exemplify the activities and integration of medical-legal partnership and demonstrate impact on healthcare clinic / institution practice.
Child HeLP was honored for its contributions to medical-legal partnership training and research. It developed an MLP and social determinants of health video training series that is housed on the Association of American Medical Colleges’ MedEd Portal, and is used widely by MLPs across the country. Child HeLP has also combined health and legal data to hotspot housing problems in Cincinnati and identify and treat substandard housing clusters. Its publications have significantly advanced the research on medical-legal partnership, housing, and population health. Child HeLP was established in 2008 and is a partnership between Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati. Nine members of its health and legal team were at the Summit to accept the award presented by Dr. Bob Pettignano, chair of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership’s Advisory Council.
The Cincinnati Child HeLP team accepting the 2016 Outstanding MLP Award. Photo Credit: Christopher Whonsetler. WhonPhoto
The second recipient, Whitman-Walker Health, has offered integrated legal services to its patients for thirty years. Its commitment to legal care as part of comprehensive health care is marked by the size of its legal services team and by the more than 2,500 patients who receive legal services annually at Whitman-Walker Health. In 2014, the health center added a new position to its leadership team – Senior Director for Health and Legal Integration and Payment Innovation – to further embed legal services as an institutional priority.
Whitman-Walker Health not only has one of the oldest and most integrated MLPs in the country, it is a pioneer in treating the health and legal issues that affect LGBT people and people with HIV. Healthcare and legal team members have worked together to create critical form letters in the Electronic Health Record for transgender patients to ensure quicker and more consistent care. The work of Whitman-Walker Health’s medical-legal partnership has extended beyond the clinic’s walls, and its advocacy has contributed to the passage of city and federal laws that promote the health and health care of LGBT individuals. Whitman-Walker Health is a federally qualified health center providing integrated services and affirming care with expertise serving people living with HIV and the LGBT communities, and has directly employed attorneys to provide legal services to its patients since 1986. The award, presented by National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership Advisory Council Member Woody Thorne, was accepted by Erin Loubier, Senior Director of Health and Legal Integration and Payment Reform at Whitman-Walker and Megan Coleman, a Family Nurse Practitioner and Director of Community Research at Whitman-Walker.
Erin Loubier (second from left) and Megan Coleman (fourth from left) accepting the 2016 Outstanding MLP Award on behalf of Whitman-Walker Health. Also pictured: staff and Advisory Council members from the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership. Photo Credit: Christopher Whonsetler. WhonPhoto
2016 Distinguished MLP Advocate Award
During the awards ceremony, Daniel Atkins from Community Legal Aid Society in Delaware and Theordore Boesen, Jr. from the Iowa Primary Care Association received the Distinguished Medical-Legal Partnership Advocate Award. Established in 2011, the award is given annually to recognize an MLP practitioner from the health, public health or legal sector who has made a significant contribution to support the national growth of the MLP movement through research, policy, scaling or education activities.
Daniel Atkins was honored for his work establishing medical-legal partnerships in both Pennsylvania and Delaware. Mr. Atkins has consistently built diverse cross-sector MLP teams that prioritize documentation of health-related impacts, which has led to significant growth and investment. Recently, the Delaware Department of Public Health committed $700,000 to provide civil legal aid services to pregnant women throughout the state; a separate funding award will expand the Delaware medical-legal partnership’s reach to serve high-need, high-cost patients in 2016-17.
Mr. Atkins co-led a federal pilot that measured the impact of including civil legal aid services in the Healthy Start home visiting program. As Mr. Atkins has methodically championed, measured, and grown medical-legal partnerships in his region, he has also published numerous articles, and created and teaches a medical-legal partnership course at Widener University’s Delaware School of Law to help train the next generation of lawyers to respond collaboratively to health problems in their communities. Mr. Atkins is the Executive Director of the Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. in Delaware and the Director of HELP: MLP at Widener University.
Dan Atkins (center) accepting the 2016 Distinguished MLP Advocate Award. Also pictured (l to r): Megan Sandel, Ellen Lawton, Joel Teitelbaum, and Bethany Hamilton. Photo Credit: Christopher Whonsetler. WhonPhoto
Theordore Boesen, Jr. was honored for his decade of national leadership in advancing the medical-legal partnership model in Iowa and nationally across federally-funded health centers and primary care associations. Mr. Boesen is the Chief Executive Officer of the Iowa Primary Care Association and was the first primary care association leader to partner with a federally-funded statewide civil legal aid agency to implement medical-legal partnership activities in several Iowa health centers. As a statewide leader in primary care and a lifelong advocate for underserved populations, Mr. Boesen championed MLP with his colleagues and allies, drawing an early federal investment for MLP activities with the help of former Senator Tom Harkin. Mr. Boesen’s leadership role in healthcare transformation in Iowa and nationally has informed the growth of MLP in Iowa, leading to new and exciting opportunities for integration and sustainability, and is again placing Mr. Boesen and the Iowa Primary Care Association out front as pioneers in the medical-legal partnership field.
Both awards were presented by National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership Advisory Council Member Bethany Hamilton.
Ted Boesen (center) accepting the 2016 Distinguished MLP Advocate Award. Also pictured: Megan Sandel and Bethany Hamilton. Photo Credit: Christopher Whonsetler. WhonPhoto