Filling the gap in elder abuse: A Medical Legal Partnership

BACKGROUND: A comprehensive coordinated community response (CCR) to elder abuse mitigates and prevents future violence. However, gaps exist in the medical treatment and documentation of minor injury in a large mid-south community and in the legal outcomes useful to the elder victim and their family members. The result are few legal remedies, except prosecution, where failure to fill the gap over time has left seniors at risk for future abuse and death.

AIMS: Identify the gaps in a CCR process experiencing increased elder abuse reports and review the advantages and disadvantages of a medical-legal partnership program as a reliable response to increasing positive outcomes in elder abuse cases.

RESULTS: In 2014, an educational grant became the focus of the local consortium with funding to explore a medical-legal partnership prevention program. While the community focused on education, talks between health care and legal providers are working toward medical legal partnerships to solve the gaps in health and legal services, which will lead to long-term, sustainable, and more effective solutions for victimized elders.

DISCUSSION: Medical-legal partnership is a care delivery model improving health in vulnerable populations by addressing unmet legal needs and removing legal barriers that impede health. The assumption is that the establishment of a medical-legal partnership will benefit elder abuse victims in the mid-south. To that end, legal professionals from private sector pro bono communities and healthcare teams are actively collaborating to establish direct legal assistance in healthcare institutions to elder abuse victims to ensure a safe recovery.