From the hospital to the streets: Bringing care to the unsheltered homeless in Los Angeles

Brett J Feldman; Jeniffer S Kim; Laura Mosqueda; Hurnan Vongsachang; Josh Banerjee; Charles E Coffey Jr; Brad Spellberg; Michael Hochman; Jehni Robinson

doi:10.1016/j.hjdsi.2021.100557

From the hospital to the streets: Bringing care to the unsheltered homeless in Los Angeles

Healthc (Amst). 2021 Sep;9(3):100557. doi: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2021.100557. Epub 2021 May 27.

Authors

Brett J Feldman¹, Jeniffer S Kim², Laura Mosqueda³, Hurnan Vongsachang⁴, Josh Banerjee⁵, Charles E Coffey Jr⁶, Brad Spellberg⁷, Michael Hochman⁸, Jehni Robinson⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Family Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: Brett.Feldman@med.usc.edu.
² Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science and Innovation, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: Jeniffer.Kim@med.usc.edu.
³ Department of Family Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: Laura.Mosqueda@med.usc.edu.
⁴ Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: hurnan.vongsachang@gmail.com.
⁵ Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: jbanerjee@dhs.lacounty.gov.
⁶ Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: CCoffeyJr@dhs.lacounty.gov.
⁷ Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: bspellberg@dhs.lacounty.gov.
⁸ Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science and Innovation, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Department of Clinical Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: Michael.Hochman@med.usc.edu.
⁹ Department of Family Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: Jehni.Robinson@med.usc.edu.

PMID: 34052622
DOI: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2021.100557

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.

Keywords: Access to care; Community health; Health disparities; Homeless medicine; Primary care; Street medicine.

MeSH terms

Hospitals
Humans
Ill-Housed Persons*
Los Angeles
United States