Transformative Pathways to Improving Health Care

http://goo.gl/Zn3LlS

This doesn’t have to be our reality. In clinics where Health Leads operates, physicians and other providers can “prescribe” food, heat, and other basic resources their patients need to be healthy, alongside medical care. Patients then take those “prescriptions” to our clinic waiting room, where our volunteers (Advocates) work side-by-side with them to access community resources and public benefits. This year, Health Leads’ corps of nearly 1,000 college student volunteers will work to connect 14,000 patients and their families with critical resources in 20 clinics across 6 cities.

In looking at other organizations that successfully had changed health care practices, we learned that peer-to-peer championship across health systems was far more effective and efficient than just increasing in size. This insight allowed us to take a minimalist approach to replication. Our intent is to partner with a small number of health systems across important market segments (such as academic medical centers, faith-based health systems, and for-profit hospital networks) and create models—“lighthouse” accounts—that can help us collect data and serve as reference points for other health care institutions.