| Program Overview
Health Leads is a national program that works to break the link between
poverty and poor health by mobilizing undergraduate volunteers to
provide sustained public health interventions in partnership with
urban medical centers, universities, and community organizations.
It envisions a new model of health care delivery, in which patients'
unmet resource needs are systematically addressed as a standard element
of patient care.
At Columbia University Medical Center Health Leads is located in the
NYP Washington Heights Family Health Center waiting room and staffed
by Columbia University undergraduate volunteers. The Family Help Desk
"fills" prescriptions written by CUMC community physicians,
connecting patients with key community resources.
Faced with escalating health care costs, sharp disparities in health
outcomes, and growing epidemics of chronic medical conditions, our
country needs new models of health care delivery. Health Leads offers
an innovative strategy for realizing just such a model, through the
creation of a clinic-based infrastructure that addresses patients’
unmet resource needs while simultaneously nurturing and equipping
the future champions of that infrastructure.
Mission/ Goals:
• Expand the capacity of our practices to address patients’
unmet resource needs by connecting them to community and government
resources
• Produce a pipeline of new leaders with the skills, knowledge,
and experience to bring about change in the health care system
Number of people served per year:
• 126 people were served, responding to 175 needs
• Over the last semester 22 volunteers have spent more than
700 hours working to connect patients to food, employment, childcare,
housing and other services
National Outcomes/ results:
Last year, Health Leads trained and deployed 660 college volunteers
to connect nearly 6,000 low-income patients and their families to
the resources they need to be healthy.
Health Leads works in 22 pediatric and prenatal clinics, newborn nurseries,
emergency rooms, and community health centers in six cities across
the U.S. Nearly 60% of Health Leads patients solve at least one critical
need – receive food, get their heat turned back on, find a job
– within 90 days of getting their “prescription.”
All patients receive ongoing follow-up until their needs are met.
By providing a transformative experience for hundreds of college volunteers,
Health Leads is producing a pipeline of new leaders who will have
both the conviction and the ability to revolutionize health care.
In 2010, 83% of Health Leads graduates entered jobs or graduate study
in the fields of health and poverty, with 94% of them reporting that
Health Leads had a “high” or “very high” impact
on their post-graduate plans.
Contact Information:
Program Manager
Sarah Hewes
Phone: 207-266-9525
Email: shewes@healthleadsusa.org
Faculty Lead/Medical Director
Dodi Meyer MD
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
Phone: 212-305-6227
Email: ddm11@columbia.edu
Program website:
www.healthleadsusa.org
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