Resource Search Results

Using Data to Promote Health Equity (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This report provides practical guidance for Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) centers by conducting a comprehensive examination of financial and operational benchmark trends, empowering HCH to leverage their data resources to effectively address health equity concerns. More Details...

2025 NAP Grant Opportunity Available: The HCH Helpdesk Blog (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: In light of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) long anticipated release of the 2025 New Access Point (NAP) grant opportunity, this post will review the Health Center Program, HCH designation, and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council's technical assistance offerings building off a previous HCH Helpdesk blog post and publication "So You Want to Start a Health Care for the Homeless Program." More Details...

Supporting People Experiencing Homelessness in Smoking Cessation: Healing Hands (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: In this issue of Healing Hands, we will look at the impact of cigarette smoking, vaping, and other tobacco use among people experiencing homelessness, including children, teens, families, Indigenous communities with cultural experiences of medicinal tobacco use, and people who experience other forms of social marginalization. We will also consider key aspects of communication and intervention in the realm of smoking cessation, including motivational interviewing, harm reduction, trauma-informed care, and the five stages of change model. We will end with one individual’s story about quitting smoking that illustrates both the challenges and benefits of engaging in tobacco cessation. More Details...

Shelter Health: Leveraging Partnerships to Improve Access and Build a Healthier Shelter Environment (2024). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: This toolkit contains resources health centers and shelters may use to improve access to primary care for people experiencing homelessness and identify strategies to create strong partnerships between shelters, health centers and local health departments. More Details...

Environmental Preparedness for Health Centers: HITEQ On the Horizon (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Climate change-induced weather events such as heat waves, poor air quality, and flooding are increasing in frequency and intensity. Health centers are challenged to maintain their own health IT and operations, ensuring continuity of care for their patients, particularly individuals who are more likely to be impacted by climate change-related disasters. More Details...

Substance Use Guidelines (2024). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: The National Health Care for the Homeless Council's Substance Use Guidelines are brief substance-specific guidelines intended for use by anyone who is a consumer of services or a service provider working with people experiencing homelessness and people who use drugs. More Details...

How EHRs Can Be Leveraged to Streamline Social Needs Screening (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Learn how screening for housing status and other Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) measures can be introduced or better integrated into health center clinical workflows. Presenters share guidance on implementing and systematizing social needs data collection in Electronic Health Records (EHRs), followed by a panel of expert health center representatives who that speak about their programs’ journeys with social needs screening programs. While this webinar will focus on health care for the homeless (HCH) health centers, anyone involved directly in social needs screening or interested in improving screening processes are welcome. Learning Objectives After this webinar, attendees will… ○ Describe the importance of capturing social needs screening data and how they relate to overall health center services. ○ Appraise their organization’s social needs screening workflow based on promising practices and examples of peer health center examples. ○ Describe strategies that could be applied to their health center to improve or streamline social needs screening process. ○ Identify which strategies demonstrated in the webinar can be introduced at their health center. More Details...

Advancing the use of SDOH Data to Support Value Based Care: National Training for Health Centers (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Is your health center interested in learning about how collection of social needs data can support your performance in providing value based care? This one-hour webinar, presented by Washington Association for Community Health, CHAS Health, and the HITEQ Center taught about best practices in SDOH screening and how health centers have used SDOH data for patient care, population health, and value based care. Participants had the opportunity to ask questions and share the specific challenges they face regarding SDOH screening and use of data. All health center staff, particularly those involved in screening clients for social needs, connecting them to resources and using data to inform care, were welcome to attend. More Details...

Building Relationships with Hospitals (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Attendees for this webinar will learn about the current landscape for America's Essential Hospitals and challenges they are facing in a post-pandemic landscape. Panelists from Cook County Health and Regional One Health will join to share how their hospitals partner with or operate medical respite programs. Strategies for communicating and collaborating with hospital systems to meet the needs of their community will be presented. More Details...

How EHRs Can Be Leveraged to Streamline Social Needs Screening: Screening for Housing Status and other Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) measures Webinar (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Is your health center planning, implementing, or revamping a social needs screening program? The National Health Care for the Homeless Council and the HITEQ Center hosted a free webinar on Tuesday, February 6th, 2024, from 2 - 3 pm Eastern (1 - 2 pm Central) where they taught participants how to screen for housing status and other Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) measures that can be introduced or better integrated into health center clinical workflows. Presenters shared guidance on implementing and systematizing social needs data collection in Electronic Health Records (EHRs), followed by a panel of expert health center representatives who spoke about their programs & journeys with social needs screening programs. Participants had the opportunity to ask questions, share successes, or discuss specific challenges they faced regarding social needs screening. While this webinar focused on health care for the homeless (HCH) health centers, anyone involved directly in social needs screening or interested in improving screening processes was welcome to attend. More Details...

Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and Human Trafficking: Health Center Preparedness Before, During, and After Emergencies (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Developed in collaboration with Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) and Health Partners on IPV and Exploitation, this educational brief focuses on equipping health centers (HCs) with the necessary tools and knowledge to support Asian Americans (AA) and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islander (NH/PI) survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Human Trafficking (HT) during natural disasters and public health emergencies (emergencies). Structural barriers, language access, and lack of culturally responsive organizations often leave these survivors vulnerable. More Details...

Incarceration and Homelessness: Reentry Considerations for Health Care Providers: Healing Hands (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: For clinics providing healthcare to people experiencing homelessness, understanding the specific challenges associated with reentry is key to offering effective and compassionate care during the reentry period. This care takes the form of understanding systems and processes in order to facilitate access to healthcare, and it also involves being willing to transform organizational structures to include people with experience of incarceration as experts in providing care to others. More Details...

CalAIM Implementation of Recuperative Care Services: Lessons Learned (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The purpose of this issue brief is to document what is working well with the implementation of the CalAIM recuperative care service to date, what remains a challenge, action steps California should consider moving forward, and advice for other states looking to add a statewide Medicaid benefit for recuperative care. This issue brief is based on interviews with leadership and staff at eight recuperative care programs, as well as several hospitals and MCPs from across the state (see appendix for list of participants). These interviews took place between June and August 2023, and their feedback is presented in the sections below. More Details...

Harnessing the Power of Outreach and Enabling Services to Address Social Drivers of Health Webinar (2023). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: As a part of a collaborative project for the Bureau of Primary Health Care’s National Training and Technical Assistance Cooperative Agreement, the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), MHP Salud, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), and Health Outreach Partners (HOP) facilitated a webinar on enabling services (ES) and social drivers of health (SDOH). The facilitators and panel of speakers discussed the role of ES staff in screening for and addressing SDOH and how data can be used for meaningful change. Speakers also shared successes, challenges, best practices, and other useful knowledge on addressing social risk factors and building community partnerships. More Details...

Preparedness for Emergencies and Environmental Impacts on Health of Public Housing Residents - Webinar Series: Session 2 (2023). Resource Type: Online Self-Paced Learning Modules. Description: The health community recognizes the climate crisis as an existential threat to humanity and human health, requiring immediate and effective action across all sectors. Health centers are the first point of contact intended to provide comprehensive and coordinated health services and contribute to both climate change adaptation and mitigation via preventive health measures and integrated health services. This webinar series, presented by NNCC and NCHPH, will explore health hazard exposures and their impacts on the health of vulnerable populations. They will identify adaptation strategies to counteract the effects of climate change on high-risk populations. More Details...

Medical Respite Programs and Managed Care Organizations: Recommendations for Collaboration and Sustainability (2023). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This webinar provides an overview of Managed Care Organizations and their relationship to medical respite care. More Details...

Preparedness for Emergencies and Environmental Impacts on Health of Public Housing Residents - Webinar Series: Session 1 (2023). Resource Type: Online Self-Paced Learning Modules. Description: The health community recognizes the climate crisis as an existential threat to humanity and human health, requiring immediate and effective action across all sectors. Health centers are the first point of contact intended to provide comprehensive and coordinated health services and contribute to both climate change adaptation and mitigation via preventive health measures and integrated health services. This webinar series, presented by NNCC and NCHPH, will explore health hazard exposures and their impacts on the health of vulnerable populations. They will identify adaptation strategies to counteract the effects of climate change on high-risk populations. More Details...

Medical Respite Playbook: A Practical Guide for Managed Care Plans (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This guide was created in partnership with Kaiser Permanente and provides managed care plans with information about the philosophy and practice of medical respite care, program design, and offers suggestions on how managed care plans can most effectively partner with medical respite care programs. More Details...

Dissecting the Street Medicine Landscape Analysis with Street Medicine Leaders (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: On Aug. 31, 2023, we hosted an in-depth analysis and discussion of the recently published California Street Medicine Landscape Survey and Report. This first-of-its-kind study looks at the scope of street medicine practice across the state of California and how street medicine should be scaled to meet the growing need of people who are unsheltered. More Details...

Housing and the Medical Respite Care Program: A Practical Guide to Navigating the Homelessness Response System (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Medical respite care (MRC) is an essential part of the health care and homelessness response system’s continuum for unhoused community members. Medical respite care is defined as acute and post-acute care for people experiencing homelessness who are too ill or frail to recover from a physical illness or injury on the streets, but who are not ill enough to be in a hospital. While programs vary in size and structure, they are all guided by the Standards for Medical Respite Care Programs (the Standards) and share the same fundamental element: short-term residential care that allows people experiencing homelessness the opportunity to rest, recover, and heal in a safe environment while accessing medical care and other supportive services. Within the Standards, Standard 5 states, “Medical respite program assists in health care coordination, provides wraparound services, and facilitates access to comprehensive support services.” Additionally, Standard 6 states, “Medical respite program facilitates safe and appropriate care transitions out of medical respite care.” Unfortunately, there are challenges in meeting and exceeding these two standards due to a significant lack of affordable housing that meets the needs of various community members within the United States (US), and the complexity of the homelessness response system and housing process to access available housing. In response to this challenge, the National Institute for Medical Respite Care (NIMRC) has developed this guide to support medical respite care programs with: Foundation information surrounding the Homelessness Response System (HRS) and Hounsing and Sociall Service Discharge Resources. More Details...