Hartford HealthCare, UConn Law School teaming up to help hospital patients. Here’s why.

Hartford Courant – Tuesday, December 10, 2024
By Sean Krofssik

It’s called a Health Equity Clinic because there is a connection between health and disparities that arise in the lives of many Connecticut residents.

To address those disparities and the impact they make on people, the University of Connecticut School of Law and Hartford HealthCare are creating the Health Equity Clinic, which will debut next month.

The clinic, which will be housed at the Hartford HealthCare campus, will address health inequities and outcome disparities using joint medical-legal advocacy and interdisciplinary interventions, according to the UConn School of Law.
The State of Connecticut is collecting over $12 million in a settlement involving more than two dozen companies it sued in 2008 over construction problems at the Thomas J. Meskill Law Library at UConn’s School of Law.

Through the program, UConn law students will help provide Hartford HealthCare’s neediest patients with legal help. Students will work with medical staff in the hospital’s primary care clinics to see patients and conduct intakes and interviews. The students are expected to learn about the complex impacts made by poverty and how the law can be used to improve health.

Dr. Suparna Dutta, chair of the Department of Medicine at Hartford Hospital, said she learned about the idea for the clinic from visiting assistant clinical professor of law at UConn Law Jay Sicklick through the Hartford HealthCare legal team.

“He wanted to try something like this at Hartford Hospital and in our community health clinics,” Dutta said. “I jumped at the idea because it is very much a big need for the patients that we care for, especially in our community health clinics. We worked hard together to make this a reality and (it’s) close to going live.

“There are a lot of people here that are from the city of Hartford and a lot of them are underinsured and there are things that pop up outside of our wheelhouse and we can’t help. This program brings in the expertise of a lawyer and patients will get an expert opinion. We will get to meet the patients where they are,” she said.

Dutta said many of her patients have housing or food insecurity and that many of them are having trouble paying for heat and electricity.

“How are they going to be able to pay for the medicine I’m prescribing them?” Dutta said. “Now we would have a legal team that could advocate for them to help get their utilities turned back on or if there is a domestic violence situation there is someone there to answer legal questions.”

“We can make an impact on people that are really suffering,” she said. “My hunch is that we are going to see themes that will be helped by the legal clinic. Hopefully we can find out why these things are happening. Then maybe we will see if this is something that we need to look at from a policy angle and push forward for change.”

Legal challenges

The program is now in the introduction stages. UConn Law Dean Eboni S. Nelson said the students will be getting to work at the hospital in the spring semester.

“Beginning in January, students will be working with Jay Sicklick and starting to provide those services for those potential clients. This past semester has been the work in establishing the clinic and getting it set up and ready to go,” Nelson said.

“Our students will get the opportunity to work with clients who are having legal challenges that could be impacting their health in various ways,” Nelson added.

“So being able to help determine what those legal challenges are and then providing assistance to hopefully meet those challenges so that they are having better outcomes, not just in their lives but also in regard to any other health issues or concerns they may be dealing with. This is just helping them to get greater support in their lives.”

One hypothetical example Nelson gave for the ways the UConn students could help is potential landlord-tenant issues.

“Say someone is presenting with respiratory issues and it turns out they are living in an apartment with high levels of lead paint that is going against rules and regulations and there could be a potential landlord-tenant issue,” Nelson said. “That could be playing a role in some of the health concerns they have. There may be an opportunity for students working in a clinic to be able to help with that.”

Nelson said her students can also help patients with benefits that they may need help accessing. Some examples she gave were for Veterans Administration or Social Security benefits.

“Being able to provide the wrap-around service and assistance to the clients as they are in the medical system but now are able to get help with any legal challenges they may be experiencing,” Nelson said.

Nelson said other law schools around the country have medical/legal partnerships. The Health Equity Clinic will be the only adult-based medical-legal partnership in central Connecticut.

“They are a phenomenal way to help provide comprehensive support to help have better health and life outcomes for members of the community. It really is a wonderful type of clinic to have and it’s wonderful to have such partnerships with support for this really meaningful work,” Nelson said.

“This clinic is a wonderful example of the law school and of UConn’s mission in being not just located in communities but really being of communities. So that we can help fulfill our mission as a public flagship law school, land grant law school and university to help members of our community throughout the state of Connecticut and beyond.”

When it is operating, the clinic will provide both on-site and remote consultations to Hartford Hospital clinical staff when “health-harming legal issues intertwine with patient care,” according to The Health Equity Clinic.

This means a focus on Hartford Hospital adult patients who also have a background of substandard outcomes, including legal issues that impact outcomes, such as access to health care, food, income security, disability discrimination and program eligibility

Sicklick, the clinic’s director, previously worked as the founder and director of Center for Children’s Advocacy for 24 years.

“This partnership will enhance the unique interdisciplinary approach to not only address legal barriers to health equity, but also to create a hands-on system that melds clinical expertise with intensive advocacy training and practice,” Sicklick said.

Nelson noted that UConn School of Law Associate Dean for Experiential Education Jessica Rubin, who oversees the school’s robust clinical program, was instrumental in facilitating the collaboration with Hartford HealthCare.

“The Health Equity Clinic builds upon the great work at the law school and throughout UConn to promote the health and well-being of Connecticut’s citizens in fulfillment of our mission as the state’s flagship public university,” Nelson said.

The Health Equity Clinic is among UConn Law’s in-house clinics and partnership clinics that offer legal services to residents while students get first-hand experience.

“The opening of the Health Equity Clinic marks a transformative step in addressing the intricate relationship between social causes of health disparities and law,” said David Mack, executive vice president and chief legal officer at Hartford HealthCare. “Through this unique partnership with the University of Connecticut School of Law and Hartford HealthCare, law students will gain invaluable insights into health equity; undoubtedly having a profound impact on patient outcomes. By collaborating with medical professionals, they will not only learn how to use the law to improve overall health but will help bridge the gap between challenging legal and health care needs.”

Sicklick said there will be four to six law students involved with the clinic per semester. In between semesters, Sicklick will oversee the clinic. He noted that there are more than 400 medical/legal partnerships around the country, and he saw a need for the adult population in the Hartford area.

“There is no existing model to combine medical/legal services in the Hartford area and that is how this idea was born,” Sicklick said. “We want to significantly impact outcomes for a vulnerable population and get better outcomes.”

Sicklick has spent the last year putting the clinic together with contacts at Hartford HealthCare and UConn Law School, where he has taught for the last 25 years. It is set to begin on Jan. 21, 2025.

“We want to address health disparities for patients that don’t have the means or opportunity for better outcomes, and they can use this additional resource to enhance the care they are already getting. … We are embedded, and we will be together from the start,” he said.

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