Health Leads
Encyclopedia
Health Leads is a national nonprofit organization that connects low-income patients with the basic resources they need to be healthy. Doctors in participating clinics “prescribe” food, fuel assistance, housing or other resources for their patients the same way they might prescribe medication. Health Leads intends for health care providers to routinely take into account the social and economic reasons people get sick.
Trained college volunteers work to fill the “prescriptions” which are meant to treat the underlying social and environmental causes of patients’ health problems.
Currently, Health Leads operates at 22 sites in six U.S. cities (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Providence, and Washington, D.C.).
sophomore Rebecca Onie
co-founded Health Leads (called Project HEALTH until November 2010) with Dr. Barry Zuckerman
, Chief of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center
. Onie reached out to Zuckerman while serving as an intern at Greater Boston Legal Services, where she was struck by the link between poverty and poor health.
During her internship, Onie interviewed mothers of children who had asthma and lung infections, which were triggered by their housing conditions. Onie found that close to 70 percent of the patients at Boston Medical Center are considered poor and the children who were treated at the clinic would later readmitted to the hospital because nothing was done to address the causes of their illnesses.
Onie served as Executive Director for Health Leads while she completed her undergraduate education. She then attended Harvard Law School and later worked as an associate at Miner, Barnhill & Galland P.C. in Chicago, where her clients included civil health centers, affordable housing developers, and nonprofit organizations. During that time, Onie served as founding Co-Chair of Health Leads’ Board of Directors. She returned to Health Leads as CEO in February 2006.
Health Leads is currently supported by both foundations and individual donors.
In 2009, Health Leads received a $2 million grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
, the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care, geared to help Health Leads grow its model to better meet the resource needs of patients in both current and future cities and facilities.
In March 2011, The Skoll Foundation awarded Health Leads a $1.2 million, three-year grant in connection with its social entrepreneurship award to Rebecca Onie.
In June 2011, Health Leads completed a capital campaign to raise $11.1 million for a four-year strategic growth plan.
Other major donors include New Profit, a venture philanthropy fund, and The Physicians Foundation.
Health Leads facilities are operated chiefly by physicians and college volunteers who work together to match incoming patients with available resources. Health Leads’ stated mission is to “connect low-income patients with the basic resources — such as food, housing, and heating assistance — that they need to be healthy.”
During a medical appointment at a Health Leads partnered clinic, a physician can refer a patient to a Health Leads desk by writing a “prescription” for resources just as he/she would for medication.
The patient is sent to a Health Leads desk in clinic waiting rooms where trained college volunteers “fill” the prescription. Stations are typically housed within pediatric outpatient, adolescent and prenatal clinics, newborn nurseries, pediatric emergency rooms, health department clinics and federally qualified health centers.
This year, Health Leads is projected to serve 9,300 patients and families.
The volunteers go through intensive training and dedicate a minimum of six hours a week for at least one year. Health Leads currently works with and accepts applications for new college volunteers each semester from the following schools: Boston University, Harvard University, Brown University, Columbia University, Barnard College, New York University, Johns Hopkins University, Loyola College, University of Maryland Baltimore County, George Washington University and the University of Chicago.
In 2010, Health Leads trained roughly 660 college volunteers, helping nearly 6,000 low-income patients. In some Health Lead’s sites, as few as 10 percent of students who apply get selected to help run a resource desk.
Nearly 60 percent of patients referred to Health Leads had at least one critical need met within 90 days of their first appointment.
A reported 83 percent of graduating Health Leads volunteers in 2010 entered jobs or advanced study in the fields of health and poverty.
100 Most Influential People Gala, First Lady Michelle Obama
called Project HEALTH (now Health Leads) “exactly the kind of social innovation and entrepreneurship we should be encouraging all across this country.”
In 2009, Onie received a MacArthur Fellows Program
from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for her work with Health Leads. Onie, one of 24 recipients of the award, was honored for Health Leads’ work “providing health care professionals with effective tools for alleviating the socioeconomic barriers that limit access to health care for low-income families, thereby expanding the scope of what health care truly entails.”
Onie was named to Oprah Winfrey
's 2010 O Power List of women who are “changing the world for the better.” According to O: The Oprah Magazine, Onie and Health Leads “blew us away” by understanding “the power of the big picture.”
In 2011, Fast Company (magazine)
featured Health Leads in the magazine’s “United States of Innovation” because of the organization’s “holistic model…doctors can prescribe food, job training, and housing aid as easily as pharmaceuticals.”
The Skoll Foundation
awarded Rebecca Onie one of its four 2011 Skoll Awards for Entrepreneurship for Health Leads’ role in “scalable, proven solutions” to the “toughest of problems.” The awards go to social entrepreneurs “around the world in the areas of tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, peace and security and economic and social equity.”
In 2011, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found anecdotal evidence that Health Leads has had a meaningful impact on the health and well-being of clients.
On July 28, 2011, The New York Times
ran a commentary about Health Leads, written by David Bornstein (author), which referred to Health Leads as "one of the most impressive organizations in the country" at addressing the conditions that make people sick.
In addition to scaling up its current model, the organization is also working on building a strong business case for why the health care system should pay for the service.
Trained college volunteers work to fill the “prescriptions” which are meant to treat the underlying social and environmental causes of patients’ health problems.
Currently, Health Leads operates at 22 sites in six U.S. cities (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Providence, and Washington, D.C.).
History
In 1996, Harvard CollegeHarvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
sophomore Rebecca Onie
Rebecca Onie
Rebecca Onie is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Health Leads.In 1996, during her sophomore year at Harvard College, Rebecca Onie founded Health Leads with Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Chair of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center...
co-founded Health Leads (called Project HEALTH until November 2010) with Dr. Barry Zuckerman
Barry Zuckerman
Barry S. Zuckerman is the co-founder of Reach Out and Read, a national childhood literacy program in the United States, and the founder of the Medical-Legal Partnership model.-Background:...
, Chief of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center is a non-profit 639 licensed-bed medical center in Boston, Massachusetts. It was created by the formal merger of Boston City Hospital which was the first municipal hospital in the United States and Boston University Medical Center Hospital in July 1996 which was sponsored...
. Onie reached out to Zuckerman while serving as an intern at Greater Boston Legal Services, where she was struck by the link between poverty and poor health.
During her internship, Onie interviewed mothers of children who had asthma and lung infections, which were triggered by their housing conditions. Onie found that close to 70 percent of the patients at Boston Medical Center are considered poor and the children who were treated at the clinic would later readmitted to the hospital because nothing was done to address the causes of their illnesses.
Onie served as Executive Director for Health Leads while she completed her undergraduate education. She then attended Harvard Law School and later worked as an associate at Miner, Barnhill & Galland P.C. in Chicago, where her clients included civil health centers, affordable housing developers, and nonprofit organizations. During that time, Onie served as founding Co-Chair of Health Leads’ Board of Directors. She returned to Health Leads as CEO in February 2006.
Health Leads is currently supported by both foundations and individual donors.
In 2009, Health Leads received a $2 million grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the United States' largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care; it is based in Princeton, New Jersey. The foundation's mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans...
, the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care, geared to help Health Leads grow its model to better meet the resource needs of patients in both current and future cities and facilities.
In March 2011, The Skoll Foundation awarded Health Leads a $1.2 million, three-year grant in connection with its social entrepreneurship award to Rebecca Onie.
In June 2011, Health Leads completed a capital campaign to raise $11.1 million for a four-year strategic growth plan.
Other major donors include New Profit, a venture philanthropy fund, and The Physicians Foundation.
How the model works
Health Leads facilities are operated chiefly by physicians and college volunteers who work together to match incoming patients with available resources. Health Leads’ stated mission is to “connect low-income patients with the basic resources — such as food, housing, and heating assistance — that they need to be healthy.”
During a medical appointment at a Health Leads partnered clinic, a physician can refer a patient to a Health Leads desk by writing a “prescription” for resources just as he/she would for medication.
The patient is sent to a Health Leads desk in clinic waiting rooms where trained college volunteers “fill” the prescription. Stations are typically housed within pediatric outpatient, adolescent and prenatal clinics, newborn nurseries, pediatric emergency rooms, health department clinics and federally qualified health centers.
This year, Health Leads is projected to serve 9,300 patients and families.
Importance of volunteers
Student volunteers, many of whom are pre-med students, are a key part of the model, which involves mobilizing “undergraduate volunteers, in partnership with providers in urban clinics, to connect low-income patients with the basic resources — such as food, housing, and heating assistance — that they need to be healthy.” Health Leads also sees them as potential future health care leaders who will understand the importance of addressing the connection between poverty and poor health.The volunteers go through intensive training and dedicate a minimum of six hours a week for at least one year. Health Leads currently works with and accepts applications for new college volunteers each semester from the following schools: Boston University, Harvard University, Brown University, Columbia University, Barnard College, New York University, Johns Hopkins University, Loyola College, University of Maryland Baltimore County, George Washington University and the University of Chicago.
In 2010, Health Leads trained roughly 660 college volunteers, helping nearly 6,000 low-income patients. In some Health Lead’s sites, as few as 10 percent of students who apply get selected to help run a resource desk.
Nearly 60 percent of patients referred to Health Leads had at least one critical need met within 90 days of their first appointment.
A reported 83 percent of graduating Health Leads volunteers in 2010 entered jobs or advanced study in the fields of health and poverty.
Evaluations and media coverage
At the 2009 Time (magazine)Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
100 Most Influential People Gala, First Lady Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States...
called Project HEALTH (now Health Leads) “exactly the kind of social innovation and entrepreneurship we should be encouraging all across this country.”
In 2009, Onie received a MacArthur Fellows Program
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for her work with Health Leads. Onie, one of 24 recipients of the award, was honored for Health Leads’ work “providing health care professionals with effective tools for alleviating the socioeconomic barriers that limit access to health care for low-income families, thereby expanding the scope of what health care truly entails.”
Onie was named to Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
's 2010 O Power List of women who are “changing the world for the better.” According to O: The Oprah Magazine, Onie and Health Leads “blew us away” by understanding “the power of the big picture.”
In 2011, Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company is a full-color business magazine that releases 10 issues per year and reports on topics including innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design, and social responsibility...
featured Health Leads in the magazine’s “United States of Innovation” because of the organization’s “holistic model…doctors can prescribe food, job training, and housing aid as easily as pharmaceuticals.”
The Skoll Foundation
Skoll Foundation
The Skoll Foundation is a social entrepreneurship foundation based in Silicon Valley, California, with a mission to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems...
awarded Rebecca Onie one of its four 2011 Skoll Awards for Entrepreneurship for Health Leads’ role in “scalable, proven solutions” to the “toughest of problems.” The awards go to social entrepreneurs “around the world in the areas of tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, peace and security and economic and social equity.”
In 2011, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found anecdotal evidence that Health Leads has had a meaningful impact on the health and well-being of clients.
On July 28, 2011, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran a commentary about Health Leads, written by David Bornstein (author), which referred to Health Leads as "one of the most impressive organizations in the country" at addressing the conditions that make people sick.
Plans for growth
Health Leads’ strategic plan for 2011 to 2014 calls for growing significantly beyond its current partner hospitals and clinics. Although many of those partners pay a portion of the cost of Health Leads services, resulting cost savings to the hospitals are not well documented at this time.In addition to scaling up its current model, the organization is also working on building a strong business case for why the health care system should pay for the service.