Who
- Hospital Council staff
- Hospital nursing, social work, and care coordination leaders
- Shelter providers
- Local government
What
This workgroup meets monthly to achieve greater connection and cooperation between discharging and receiving providers of services for people experiencing homelessness. These meetings initially began in 2018 to help hospitals comply with Senate Bill 1152, and in 2020 they transitioned into discussing how to collaborate and respond to COVID-19 among individuals experiencing homelessness. In September, the workgroup expressed an interest in exploring how to replicate an interim care program (ICP) — homeless medical respite — in Stanislaus County to help with transitioning health care needs when a person experiencing homelessness is discharged from the hospital and before entering a shelter setting.
Takeaway/Next Steps
A cohort of workgroup members was established to drill down what an ICP model would look like in Stanislaus County. Stanislaus hospitals are currently collecting data to see the number of discharged individuals experiencing homelessness, the type of insurance they had, and whether they had a more urgent visit indicating they needed a higher level of care than a standard shelter. The cohort will reconvene on Nov. 2 to review the collected data metrics. More to come.