Medical Respite Care Tool Kit

Implementation Tool
April 2022

Headline

Resources to help organizations develop and improve medical respite programs for people experiencing homelessness.

Context

Medical respite care programs provide acute and post-acute medical care for people experiencing homelessness who are too ill or frail to be on the street or in a shelter, but not ill enough to be in a hospital. These programs offer short-term residential services, support services, and medical care to help people experiencing homelessness safely recover, and they also shorten hospital lengths of stay, reduce readmissions, and lower costs. This toolkit provides information and strategies to assist organizations in starting or improving medical respite care programs.

About this Tool

The toolkit contains articles, webinars, and clinical tools addressing:

  1. Introductory information on medical respite care, including research supporting it;
  2. Developing medical respite care programs;
  3. Financing medical respite care programs, including tips on hospital partnerships specifically;
  4. Policy and advocacy tools; and
  5. Resources for medical respite care providers, including tools for quality and program improvement, clinical practice, program policies, and COVID-19 resources.

Takeaways

Health care and community-based organizations can use these resources to plan, develop, finance, and improve medical respite care programs for people experiencing homelessness.

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