The Dayton (Ohio) Children's Hospital Center for Child Health and Wellness has partnered with Boston-based Health Leads, an enterprise that works to address patients' basic needs, to connect patients to community resources.
Through the partnership, Dayton Children's and Health Leads launched the Family Resource Connection program, which screens patient families for unmet social needs, such as food, housing and transportation. Student workers, called advocates, reach out to families in need and provide them with resources or contacts that can help.
"As healthcare evolves, we need to recognize the non-medical causes of poor health, such as access to food, job skills and training, healthy housing and poverty," said Dayton Children's Hospital President and CEO Deborah Feldman. "If we can ensure families have access to the appropriate community resources, the likelihood that they will need the healthcare system for preventable illness and injury will decrease."