The Making of a Medical-Legal Partnership in a Level I Trauma Center: Recovery Legal Care
摘要
Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) provide legal support to patients undergoing medical care in hospitals. Many patients, especially those that are violently injured, often experience health-harming legal needs (HHLNs) involving the social and structural determinants of health. These can include, but are not limited to, job loss, medical debt, eviction, food insecurity, loss of income or financial support and others. HHLNs may place patients at risk for re-injury after violent trauma. Trauma centers often rely on the work of Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs (HVIPs) to support patients after injury. To date, no trauma center in the U.S. has a MLP nor have they combined one with their local HVIP. In this chapter, we describe our experience establishing a harmonized MLP-HVIP called Recovery Legal Care.