Keeping the Heat on for Children's Health: A Successful Medical-Legal Partnership Initiative to Prevent Utility Shutoffs in Vulnerable Children.
J Health Care Poor Underserved
; 26(3): 676-85, 2015 Aug.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26320904
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Energy insecurity may result in adverse consequences for children's health, particularly for children with special health needs or chronic health conditions. We aimed to determine whether a multimodal intervention addressing energy insecurity within the framework of a medical-legal partnership (MLP) resulted in an increase in the provision of certifications of medical need for utility coverage in an inner city academic primary care practice.METHODS:
Working within a medical-legal partnership, we standardized criteria for providers approving medical need utility certification requests. We compared prior-year utility certification requests and approvals (pre-intervention) with the intervention year for families who reported energy insecurity on a waiting-room screening questionnaire.RESULTS:
Between the first and second years of the study, certification of medical need approvals increased by 65%, preventing utility shut-offs for 396 more families with vulnerable children.CONCLUSIONS:
Energy insecurity can be screened for and addressed in a busy urban practice, potentially improving the wellbeing of vulnerable children.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Saúde da Criança
/
Populações Vulneráveis
/
Promoção da Saúde
/
Calefação
Tipo de estudo:
Evaluation_studies
Limite:
Child
/
Humans
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2015
Tipo de documento:
Article