Kaiser Permanente studies show MLP increased access to legal services, improved job satisfaction, and reduced ED visits
Thursday, June 6, 2024
Download the evaluation report executive summary
In 2021, Kaiser Permanente’s national Office of Community Health launched the Health, Housing, and Justice: Medical-Legal Partnership Initiative within the Kaiser Permanente healthcare system in partnership with the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership and HealthBegins. The goal was to integrate robust medical-legal partnerships into Kaiser Permanente and build capacity of the community-based legal aid ecosystem to increase housing stability and eviction risk for Kaiser Permanente members and communities. Five Kaiser Permanente regions implemented the medical-legal partnership model and partnered with local community-based legal aid agencies to provide housing-related legal services to Kaiser Permanente patients:
- Kaiser Permanente Southern California (with Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County);
- Kaiser Permanente Northwest (with Legal Aid Services of Oregon);
- Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States (with Maryland Legal Aid);
- Kaiser Permanente Northern California (with Legal Services of Northern California); and
- Kaiser Permanente Colorado (with Colorado Legal Services).
From 2021 -2023, the Center for Community Health and Evaluation conducted an implementation evaluation across all medical-legal partnership sites to examine changes to staff and system capacity, barriers and facilitators to adoption and spread of workflows and operational changes, and learnings/promising practices. Partners in Education and Research are currently conducting a robust outcomes evaluation through December 31, 2024, to assess the impact of medical-legal partnership services on individuals and their healthcare utilization.
Findings from these evaluations showed that the medical-legal partnerships increased access to legal services for Kaiser Permanente patients, improved job satisfaction among front-line care staff at Kaiser Permanente, and reduced patients’ emergency department visits. Download the evaluation report executive summary to learn more.
The full evaluation findings will be released in early 2025. If you have questions about the information in the executive summary, please contact Marisa Conner from Kaiser Permanente at: Marisa.L.Conner@kp.org