Article: Kaiser Permanente Medical-Legal Partnership Initiative Featured in Health Services Research
Download the full article from Health Services Research
Key findings from NCMLP’s collaborative work on the Kaiser Permanente Medical-Legal Partnership Initiative are featured in Health Services Research, a leading peer-reviewed journal. The new article, “Health, Housing, and Justice: Two‐Year Implementation Evaluation of a Health System’s Multi‐State Medical‐Legal Partnership to Address Housing Instability,” sheds light on how health and legal sectors are working together to address housing instability—and what it takes to implement these partnerships effectively at scale.
Highlights from the study include:
- Expanded Access: Attorneys reported that the MLP made legal assistance available to clients who otherwise would not have access to it
- Efficient Service Delivery: 82% of legal cases were resolved with fewer than 5 hours of attorney time.
- Implementation Drivers: Success factors included strong clinical champions, targeted staff training on housing-related legal issues and referral protocols, and existing social needs screening infrastructure.
- Challenges Identified: Barriers included difficulties with information sharing, acclimating legal teams to complex healthcare systems, and geographic misalignment between Kaiser Permanente and legal aid service areas.
Overall, the study found that embedding MLPs upstream in healthcare systems can enable access to health-promoting legal resources for underserved clients.