TRAINING & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Dan Russell, CEO, Genesee County Community Mental Health, connected with Barbara DiPietro, Director of Policy, National Health Care for the Homeless Council, on November 11, 2011, to discuss health care reform, integration of primary and behavioral health care, and being a new member of the Council. 

"Be friends with everybody and look for collaborations that a couple years ago you might never have thought of. I think the landscape is going to change...Look for partners and look for services you can really do well. Partner with those other organizations that do other things well. " FULL INTERVIEW

John Lozier, MSSW

I am most fortunate to be part of a large community of kind, well-motivated people who have found spiritual succor, intellectual stimulation, and professional growth in Health Care for the Homeless...I look forward to more years of work together, confident that we are saving lives, comforting the afflicted, and changing the world. FULL LETTER  

READ THE LATEST ISSUE OF RESPITE NEWS  

The November newsletter of the Respite Care Providers' Network covered Medicaid reimbursement and clinical recommendations for medical respite and spotlighted Willie Mackey, a former medical respite program consumer who said, "I would have died on the street if I wasn't in the medical respite program," and now advocates for others experiencing homelessness. FULL NEWSLETTER    

CLINICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLKIT

Clinicians' Network staff has created a toolkit with a number of useful resources for the homeless health care field. Topics include employment, grants, stress reduction, and medical home, and materials come from a number of national health and homelessness partners, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Interagency Council on Homelessness. FULL TOOLKIT 

ROLE OF MEDICAL RESPITE IN PATIENT CENTERED MEDICAL HOME  

Clinicians' Network Member Brian Klausner, MD, shares his experiences with the patient centered medical home recognition process in this article highlighting the value medical respite care can bring.

"If a Health Care for the Homeless program is going to be a successful PCMH, it has to develop unique solutions to manage the highest risk patients. Medical respite care can serve as a vital component to the solution."   FULL ARTICLE   

Dr. Klausner is the former medical director of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program's Boston Medical Center clinic; he recently moved to Raleigh, NC, and is working as a physician within the WakeMed health care system, maintaining some volunteer time with Wake Health Services Horizon Healthcare for the Homeless project.  

OCTOBER HCH RESEARCH UPDATE 

In its quarterly HCH Research Update, the Council summarizes recent publications on health care and homelessness. October's issue, compiled from several research databases, includes articles from approximately July to September 2011. Summaries are categorized into themes that vary by quarter. FULL UPDATE

YOUTH HOMELESS COUNT  

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently published an article on a homeless youth count in Baltimore, MD. FULL ARTICLE

HOW CAN YOU BETTER COMMUNICATE YOUR DATA? 

Learn how to present your research data to lay audiences with Making Data Talk: A Workbook, produced by the National Cancer Institute of the US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. FULL WORKBOOK 

TRAUMA INTERVENTIONS FOR CHILDREN 

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Effective Health Care (EHC) Program is accepting comments on draft key questions for a comparative effectiveness review on Interventions Addressing Child Exposure to Trauma: Part II - Trauma Other Than Child Maltreatment and Family Violence. Submit comments online by December 13, 2011.  

BEHAVIORAL RISK FACTOR SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM  

The 29th Annual Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Conference (March 24-28, 2012, at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia) call for abstracts is now open. The BRFSS Conference Committee seeks abstracts for oral and poster presentations. Abstracts related to BRFSS topics in survey research, epidemiology, evaluation, policy and public health are welcome for consideration. Submit abstracts online through December 30, 2011.  

Sarah Davidson, former NCAB Chair Photo by Bob Owen

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

The National Consumer Advisory Board is currently accepting applications for its steering committee.  Please complete the nomination form and email to ncab@nhchc.org to be considered.  

HOMELESS PERSONS MEMORIAL DAY, DECEMBER 21st   

NCAB seeks to honor all those who lost their lives without housing this year. Please share with us the details of your community's Homeless Persons Memorial Day event and list of those who will be remembered in this online survey. Stories will be posted to our website.  

UPDATE FROM WASHINGTON 

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the "Super Committee") announced on Nov. 21 that they were unable to reach an agreement, thus requiring automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion divided between defense and domestic spending starting in Jan 2013. While Medicaid and Social Security are exempt from these cuts, many additional programs that our patients depend on are not (domestic programs would be cut by 8% each year if applied equally to all programs). Efforts to prevent the cuts are likely, so the deficit reduction debate is far from over. At the same time, this year's funding remains to be allocated and health center expansion money is among the most contentious outstanding issues. Stay tuned and look for a Mobilizer in the coming weeks!  

NEW PUBLICATION ON PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING  

The Council has completed a Policy and Practice Brief that highlights the Clinical Challenges in Permanent Supportive Housing. Of use to both policy makers and clinical teams, this document contains useful strategies to overcome common challenges in providing care to a very vulnerable and complex population.   

COUNCIL COMMUNICATES WITH HHS ON KEY PRIORITIES 

The Council submitted comments to proposed regulations detailing the Medicaid enrollment process under the Affordable Care Act.  This is a vital component of the ACA, under which nearly 20 million people earning at or below 138% FPL will be eligible for Medicaid beginning on January 1, 2014. We are particularly interested in how the "no fixed address" component of the application can serve as a flag for greater utility, and how additional points of contact can be listed on applications.  Read the Council's response to get a greater appreciation of the good things to come.