Having a medical home – a trusted, reliable source of continuing health care – can ease the process for people leaving jail so that they’re less likely to return.
—Dick Bohrer COCHS Advisory Committee Member
Departments of corrections and health providers from the community should join together in the common project of delivering high quality health care that protects prisoners and the public.
—Confronting Confinement: A Report of the Commission on Safety
and Abuse in America’s Prisons
By collaborating with community health centers, jails can be part of the solution to improving both public safety and public health.
Watch the webcast of Health Reform and Criminal Justice: Integrating Jails into Health Information Exchanges. This conference convened by COCHS with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Public Welfare Foundation brought together stakeholders to discuss the challenges of including local jails in health information exchanges (HIEs). Also available for viewing is the short documentary, The Unseen Provider: Healthcare in Our Jails. This film was specifically made for the conference. It features Dr. Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dr. Jeff Brenner, Director and Founder of Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, and Sandi Selzer, Director of Camden Health Information Exchange. In addition, read the issue papers that were commissioned for this meeting. They address topics ranging from health information technology in jails to privacy and consent to envisioning next steps for moving ahead with connecting jails to HIEs.
Download Medicaid Expansion and The Local Criminal Justice System, COCHS CEO Michael DuBose explains the implications of Medicaid expansion for the jail-involved population, in this article published in American Jails magazine.