NYC Health + Hospitals has launched a program to provide home care to formerly homeless patients transitioning to permanent housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have people who are medically frail, who often have a lot of co-occurring physical conditions,\u201d says Leora Jontef, Senior Assistant Vice President for Housing and Real Estate at New York City Health and Hospitals. \u201cSo the idea with the Bridge to Care is to go, \u2018OK, what do you need to transition seamlessly into housing?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the transitional clinical services that the program, Bridge to Care, offers is home health aides. Once a patient is in permanent housing, they will be given a home health aide until Medicare benefits are approved, a period of time that can span anywhere from a month and a half to three months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is that this would move someone into housing quicker, and so that they would stabilize faster and not languish in other places, whether it\u2019s shelter or language in the hospital, or be at our medical respite program,\u201d Jontef told McKnight\u2019s Home Care Daily Pulse. \u201cWe want to move people into housing more quickly, and this is a tool to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward Johnson, a NYC Health + Hospitals patient who was part of Bridge to Care\u2019s pilot, said that the program is about more than just housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about having your own place. It\u2019s about having professional help; having people help you get your medicine, help you make appointments, help you get Meals on Wheels, help you get benefits,\u201d Johnson said in a statement. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would have been able to do this on my own. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the pilot used a cluster care model, Jontef said they hope to expand the program and meet people where they are. She added that they also hope to increase the variety of transitional services offered.<\/p>\n
Housing = focus<\/p>\n
The aim is to help any patient experiencing homelessness and is referred to Housing for Health for assistance, Jontef said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal would be to help them to get stably housed, get housed in the best apartment that meets their needs, and if meeting their needs means providing this supplemental service, we are ready to do it,\u201d Jontef said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bridge to Care is under Housing for Health, an NYC Health + Hospitals initiative that creates housing supports and opportunities for patients experiencing homelessness, Jontef said. She added that NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest public healthcare system in the nation and about 70,000 patients \u2014 7% of the population served \u2014 are experiencing homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that where you live really impacts your health outcomes, your mental health, your physical health, and we have created a suite of services to help our patients get housed,\u201d Jontef said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Housing for Health acts \u201cas a universal point of access for housing\u201d at NYC Health + Hospitals and other services include housing navigation and medical respite, Jontef said.<\/p>\n
The housing navigation program helps about 500 people find housing each year and the medical respite program gives patients who are medically cleared to leave the hospital a place to stay and recover, Jontef said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having housing allows people to focus on their medical and mental health rather than worrying about day to day needs, Jontef said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s meet the moment. Let\u2019s meet the patient where they are,\u201d said Jontef. \u201cThese patients that we\u2019re helping are our most vulnerable New Yorkers. They cycle through a lot of institutions. They cycle through jail, they cycle on the street, they cycle to shelter. We want to take advantage of the moment that they\u2019re with us, and if they\u2019ve found someone that cares about them, let\u2019s take it to the finish line and get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NYC Health + Hospitals has launched a program to provide home care to formerly homeless patients transitioning to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-317424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}