Service

An essential component of the Consortium's mission is a commitment to public service, and particularly service to underserved populations. A major focus of the Consortium will be to develop service opportunities which create beneficial synergies between the worlds of law and science. 

Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors

Overview of the Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors

     MLPS One-Page Overview

     The Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors promotes the health and well-being of vulnerable elderly populations through a three-pronged approach: direct clinical services, policy advocacy, and research and evaluation.  This collaborative effort, developed with reference to the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership model, is designed to identify and eliminate social barriers to health or health care through the use of legal tools and education.  
     The optimization of an elderly patient’s well-being requires highly-coordinated care and resources. Vulnerable elderly patients in particular need assistance with health care decision-making, financial planning, preventing or resolving issues with their benefits, such as Medicare, and resolving conflicts within their families.  Medical providers are often aware of these needs, but generally do not have the resources or training to effectively address needs and barriers beyond the medical clinic walls. 
     The Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors links medical and legal providers and learners in order to close the information and service gap and more effectively address the social determinants of health for the elderly.  

Clinical Services

     The direct services component of the Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors is a legal clinic provided through UC Hastings College of Law.  The clinic is physically-situated at an existing UCSF medical facility in order to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and effective delivery of legal assistance.  UC Hastings faculty and law students will collaborate with UCSF medical providers and learners to identify and solve barriers to health or health care for elderly patients.  The legal team will train the medical care team to spot legal issues affecting elderly patients’ health.  The medical care team will then be able to refer patients for direct legal assistance.  
     The clinic will provide three critical opportunities: 1) free legal assistance to low-income elderly populations, 2) educational opportunities for both providers and patients on legal issues affecting health and health care delivery, and 3) clinical experience for law students interesting in pursuing elder law, health law, or public interest law.

Policy Advocacy

     In addition to direct services to individuals, the Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors seeks to address policy issues impacting the health and well-being of the vulnerable elderly.  The Consortium is developing a policy advocacy course for law students and health care providers, which will provide a forum for collaborative research and advocacy on key issues facing this population. 
     Ongoing policy advocacy work will be highlighted and discussed in the Consortium’s Roundtables and Speaker Series, a biweekly convening of faculty, clinicians, researchers, students, and community members from a variety of fields.

Research & Evaluation

     The Medical-Legal Partnership for Seniors includes research programs designed to foster a better understanding of models for improving the health and well-being of the elderly.  This includes evaluation of the direct legal services component of the partnership, as well as external models. 

• Evaluation of Direct Legal Services: The premise that medical-legal partnerships can improve health and well-being is uncontroversial, yet rigorous evaluation methods have yet to be developed, particularly with regard to elderly populations.  The Consortium is developing and testing evaluation tools which can be implemented to determine the impact of the clinic on patients as well as medical and legal providers.
• San Francisco Elder Financial Abuse Collaboration: The goal of this project is to promote the health status and autonomy of vulnerable elders by improving civil responses to elder financial abuse. The project aims to comprehensively research and analyze existing programs, frameworks, and policies that address elder financial abuse, with a particular focus on civil legal remedies.  These findings will then be translated into a blueprint that will guide San Francisco’s implementation of a comprehensive, coordinated civil response to elder financial abuse.  A key attribute of this project is that both objectives will be achieved through multidisciplinary collaboration and input from local stakeholders. 

An important goal of these research programs is that findings are disseminated as broadly as possible. Researchers will present their work at local and national conferences, at lecture and continuing education series, in academic and professional journals, and in online fora.

For more information about this clinic, please contact Sarah Hooper at hoopers@uchastings.edu or Helen Kao at helen.kao@ucsf.edu.