Lankenau Medical Center Receives Nearly $42K Grant from the PA Dept. of Health for its Medical Student Health Advocate Program

Lankenau Medical Center is the recipient of a $41,599 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Community-Based Health Care Subsidy Program to support its Medical Student Advocate Program.

The Medical Student Advocate Program was developed to provide patients with assistance for non-medical needs to improve health outcomes.  Lankenau Medical Center has collaborated with Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) and includes second- and third-year PCOM students who serve as non-clinical patient advocates, helping with such needs as food assistance, child care, health insurance and housing search.  Lankenau’s Medical Student Advocate Program is part of its Patient Centered Medical Home, where the Lankenau Clinical Care Center (LCCC) and Lankenau Medical Associates functions as a medical home by using systematic, patient-centered and coordinated care management processes.

“It is an honor for Lankenau to be a recipient of this grant which allows us to offer this program for the benefit of our patients and as an educational partnership for local medical school students,” said Chinwe Onyekere, director of Ambulatory Services and Business Development. “Thanks to the grant, the Medical Student Advocate Program will enable patients to receive access to key resources which positively impact health outcomes.”

PCOM students work with the LCCC, which serves as the teaching site for 39 internal medicine residents and 26 fellows in cardiology, gastroenterology, hematology-oncology and nephrology and serves mostly underserved and vulnerable populations, and are assigned up to five patients per semester. The program teaches students system-based practice activities, improved outreach techniques and the importance of communication at points of transition of care.

“We are very interested in tracking programmatic outcomes for this program to determine if the program is successful,” said Dr. Madelaine Saldivar, Medical Director for Lankenau Clinical Care Center and Lankenau Medical Associates.  All of the Medical Student Health Advocate referrals will be tracked in the electronic medical record (EMR). We intend to track the impact of resource referrals to improved health outcomes. For example, will a food resource connection impact obesity or diabetes. We are also interested in learning if this program can decrease readmissions and improve patient satisfaction.”