From the hospital to the streets: Bringing care to the unsheltered homeless in Los Angeles
Feldman, Brett J.; Kim, Jeniffer S.; Mosqueda, Laura; Vongsachang, Hurnan; Banerjee, Josh; Coffey, Charles E. Jr.; Spellberg, Brad; Hochman, Michael; Robinson, Jehni
Why this matters
Hospitals discharging unsheltered patients rarely have anywhere to hand off to. A Los Angeles partnership put a street medicine team into discharge planning and followed 206 unsheltered patients onto the streets afterward to establish continuity of primary care.
Abstract
Homelessness is a neglected crisis throughout the United States. In Los Angeles (L.A.) County, nearly 59,000 residents are homeless, and the vast majority are unsheltered. An academic institution and L.A county's largest public hospital formed a partnership to launch a Street Medicine (SM) program. SM assists the inpatient team with discharge planning and builds rapport with the patient experiencing homelessness. After discharge, the SM team follows up and brings care to the patient on the streets, often developing a trusting relationship and establishing continuity of primary care. During a 12-month period, SM provided inpatient consults for 206 unsheltered homeless patients.