Caring for Society’s Most Vulnerable: How the Radical Becomes Viable

Health Leads is a organization that envisions a healthcare system that addresses all patients’ basic resource needs as a standard part of quality care. Its mission is to catalyze this healthcare system by connecting patients with the basic resources they need to be healthy, and in doing so build leaders with the conviction and ability to champion quality care for all patients.   The model deployed in the clinics where we operate physicians and other providers can prescribe food, heat, and other basic resources their patients need to be healthy, alongside prescriptions for medication. Patients then take those prescriptions to a Health Leads Desk in the clinic waiting room, where our college student Advocates work side-by-side with the patients to access community resources and public benefits. Health Leads enables healthcare providers to prescribe basic resources like food and heat just as they do medication and refer patients to our program just as they do any other specialty.  We recruit and train college students— Health Leads Advocates – to fill these prescriptions by working side by side with patients to connect them with the basic resources they need to be healthy. The history and current activities of this unique program will be discussed