TY - JOUR
T1 - Novel perinatal medical-legal partnership development and pilot implementation to address health-harming legal needs
AU - Gievers, Ladawna
AU - Mutrie, Lauren
AU - Klawetter, Susanne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.
PY - 2024/1
Y1 - 2024/1
N2 - Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) are evidence-based, interdisciplinary collaborations between health systems and legal service organizations designed to address health-harming legal needs among low-income patients and their families. MLPs provide civil legal services and advocacy around health-harming needs, such as substandard housing, food insecurity, benefit denials, education and employment barriers, legal status, custody, and child support. Widely implemented in pediatric health settings, research supports MLPs ability to positively impact the health trajectories of children and their families. This manuscript describes our health system’s innovative development and pilot implementation of the first MLP in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). We share our MLP integration strategies, scope of practice, screening processes, workflow, and challenges. We conclude with anticipated areas of growth and future direction for this program, which we believe will address health-harming legal needs for our patients in their earliest weeks of life.
AB - Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) are evidence-based, interdisciplinary collaborations between health systems and legal service organizations designed to address health-harming legal needs among low-income patients and their families. MLPs provide civil legal services and advocacy around health-harming needs, such as substandard housing, food insecurity, benefit denials, education and employment barriers, legal status, custody, and child support. Widely implemented in pediatric health settings, research supports MLPs ability to positively impact the health trajectories of children and their families. This manuscript describes our health system’s innovative development and pilot implementation of the first MLP in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). We share our MLP integration strategies, scope of practice, screening processes, workflow, and challenges. We conclude with anticipated areas of growth and future direction for this program, which we believe will address health-harming legal needs for our patients in their earliest weeks of life.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41372-023-01829-8
DO - 10.1038/s41372-023-01829-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 38007591
AN - SCOPUS:85178319206
SN - 0743-8346
VL - 44
SP - 136
EP - 141
JO - Journal of Perinatology
JF - Journal of Perinatology
IS - 1
ER -