Local Hospitals Benefit from Innovative Medical-Legal Partnership
Erie County Medical Center
New York
The palliative care department at Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) was the first in Western New York to offer patients a new component of their overall care: help with legal issues from the MedLaw Partnership. The arrangement helps patients address legal and social challenges that affect health outcomes, including housing instability, financial insecurity, and family violence. By embedding attorneys, paralegals, and social workers within healthcare teams, the program enables providers to identify barriers to care and connect patients with timely legal assistance.
Since its launch in 2016, the MedLaw Partnership has grown to provide legal assistance to patients across the greater Buffalo, New York region, where healthcare leaders say it demonstrates how addressing legal and social issues can improve patient well-being, reduce stress, and help prevent repeated hospitalizations.
The innovative medical-legal partnership has won accolades as a key component of patient-centered care, and the MedLaw Partnership recently received national recognition through ECMC’s Palliative Medicine and Supportive Care Program, which earned the American Hospital Association’s prestigious Circle of Life Award.