Resource Search Results

Foundations of LGBTQIA+ Health Care and Homelessness: Terminology, Concepts, and Best Practices (2022). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: View this 90-minute webinar for an introduction to foundational terminology and concepts related to LGBTQIA+ identity and experience of homelessness with a focus on LGBTQIA+ health care. Health center staff will learn about healthcare disparities and applicable clinical practices that participants can integrate into their own contexts. More Details...

Building Sustainable Partnerships using the Community Centered Health Home Model (2022). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: View this webinar to learn how one community identified a health need and used the CCHH model to respond. More Details...

Barriers to Accessing Higher Levels of Care: Implications for Medical Respite Programs (2022). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This issue brief describes the different levels of care within the health care service continuum a person may need following acute care hospitalization and highlights the admission barriers commonly encountered by people experiencing homelessness. It also illustrates the role of medical respite care programs within this continuum, and outlines action steps that communities can take to improve access to higher levels of care for people experiencing homelessness. More Details...

The State of Medical Respite Care (2022). Resource Type: Other. Description: Medical respite care (MRC), also known as recuperative care, is acute and post-acute care for people experiencing homelessness (PEH) who are too ill or frail to recover from an illness or injury on the street or in a shelter, but who do not require hospital-level care. The field of MRC continues to grow as more communities recognize the importance of addressing this gap in care for PEH who need a place to heal. The data in this interactive webpage provide a snapshot of the state of MRC programs in 2022. This resource is intended to support MRC advocacy, education, program planning, and quality improvement in communities across the U.S. More Details...

Promoting Safety in Street Outreach (2022). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This webinar recording describes core competencies for maintaining safety in street outreach. More Details...

Statewide Medicaid Benefit for Medical Respite Care: Issues Informing Benefit Design and Implementation (2022). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have encouraged states to consider how to address social determinants of health in their Medicaid plans. Washington State Health Care Authority recognizes the benefits of a statewide MRC service, and is proposing it as part of Washington State’s Medicaid Transformation Project Section 1115 Demonstration Renewal Request as a health-related service for Apple Health enrollees in both managed care and FFS delivery systems. More Details...

One Community's Collaborative Approach: A Spotlight on Yakima, Washington (2022). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This spotlight interview includes the housing, CoC, and MRC leaders in Yakima, Washington. They describe their MRC program, how it fits within their community’s response to homelessness, their collective approaches to racial equity, and specific ways they have strengthened their system through their collaboration. More Details...

Medical Respite Literature Review: A Update on the Evidence for Medical Respite Care Executive Summary (2022). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The number of medical respite programs has grown substantially in the United States over the past several years, as has the number of research studies and publications exploring this health care service(NIMRC, 2020; Doran et al., 2013). In response to this expansion and subsequent research, a literature review was conducted to: 1) provide an updated and comprehensive overview of existing medical respite programs; 2) identify the need for medical respite programs; and 3) identify the outcomes of medical respite programs and interventions. More Details...

From Homelessness to Housing: Challenges and Opportunities of Housing Transitions: Healing Hands (2022). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This issue of Healing Hands will present some of the key challenges faced by newly housed individuals and their care providers, and will consider a variety of principles, concepts, and approaches that can be useful in mitigating and transforming these challenges, in support of the best possible outcomes for a client’s health and well-being. More Details...

Expanding Options for Health Care Within Homelessness Services: CoC Partnerships with Medical Respite Care Programs (2022). Resource Type: Publication. Description: A brief to improve health care quality and outcomes for people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 response by strengthening partnerships between homelessness assistance systems and medical respite care (MRC) providers. This brief features the views of both Continuums of Care (CoCs) and MRC staff about how to best integrate operations at the systemic level, as well as featuring a community spotlight on the CoC-MRC partnership in Yakima, Washington. More Details...

Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) for Opioid Use Disorder for People Experiencing Homelessness (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This fact sheet presents an analysis of national health center data on buprenorphine-based Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) services provided at Health Care for the Homeless health centers in calendar year 2020, underscoring that while more health centers are providing MAT, regions with the highest overdose rates lack sufficient access to buprenorphine. More Details...

Housing Insecurity and Health Centers: The Case for Screening and Beyond (2021). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Housing insecurity was on the rise across the country even before the pandemic, which destabilized so many lives. If health centers are serious about the Social Determinants of Health, they should prioritize housing as a profoundly influential SDOH, regardless of HCH designation. This webinar featured two leaders whose health centers do NOT have HCH funding but provide quality services for people experiencing homelessness all the same. We discussed data on homelessness across the country, what UDS shows on screening for housing insecurity among non-HCH health centers, strategies for screening inclusively, and the breadth of the HRSA definition of homelessness. We concluded by highlighting a new HRSA-funded publication that goes deeper on all of these issues. More Details...

The Biden Administration's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate: Frequently Asked Questions for the HCH Community (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: On November 4, the Biden Administration issued two rules to provide further guidance on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate announced in early September. One rule outlines the requirements for health care facilities, while the second rule outlines those for private employers with 100+ employees. The National HCH Council has previously endorsed organizations that issued vaccine mandates, and we are grateful to see these new guidelines announced because they will increase the number of people getting vaccinated. To help with initial planning, below are answers to frequently asked questions for how the new rules will impact the Health Care for the Homeless community. More Details...

Identifying Outcomes for Medical Respite/ Recuperative Care Programs (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This document is intended to help programs identify specific outcomes and variables that they can feasibly track within their program. More Details...

Building the Evidence Base for Medical Respite Care: A Participatory and Inclusive Research Agenda (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The National Institute for Medical Respite Care (NIMRC), a special initiative of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, planned and implemented a year-long stakeholder engagement project, Identifying Strategies to Engage Medical Respite Care Programs and People Experiencing Homelessness, to explore opportunities for advancing patient-centered outcomes research within the field of MRC. This research agenda is based on the cumulative activities leading to and including a two-day project summit involving various stakeholders (many of whom had lived experience of homelessness) from more than 22 MRC programs and communities nationwide. More Details...

Interim Adapted Clinical Guidelines for Post-COVID Conditions (Long-COVID) (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The CDC recently released interim guidance for supporting individuals with Post-COVID conditions, also known as “Long-COVID.” The purpose of this guide is to adapt the CDC clinical guidance for health care providers to meet the unique needs and challenges that people experiencing homelessness may face while managing Long-COVID. More Details...

Filling the HCH Gap: Case Studies of Non-HCH Health Centers Serving People Experiencing Homelessness (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This publication highlights five health centers that do not have Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) designation but provide excellent services to people experiencing homelessness regardless. More Details...

Interim Lessons Learn from the Pandemic: COVID-19 & the HCH Community (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: COVID-19 continues to be an international pandemic and the experiences over the past 18 months have shown there are more effective ways to provide care to vulnerable people. The challenge now is to extend these improvements to all communities and make them permanent. While the pandemic is not yet over, this issue brief outlines five “lessons learned” (and related strategies) that have improved systems of care and heightened public health interventions for people experiencing homelessness. More Details...

Medical Respite Standards (2021). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Medical Respite Care is acute and post-acute recuperative care for people experiencing homelessness who are ready for hospital discharge but too frail to recover on the streets or in shelters. This resource constitutes the first and only national standards for medical respite care. They are meant to improve quality and consistency across a range of medical respite programs and to improve opportunities for research and federal funding. More Details...

Where Does Homelessness Happen?: Understanding the Definitions of Homelessness (2021). Resource Type: Other. Description: This infographic succinctly depicts the various shelter arrangements that constitute the breadth of homelessness, distinguishing major differences between federal definitions, with considerations for screening. More Details...