By HFT Staff

The University of Connecticut School of Law and Hartford HealthCare are partnering to create a Health Equity Clinic. The new clinic, which will open in January 2025, will confront health inequities and outcome disparities through joint medical-legal advocacy and interdisciplinary interventions. 

The Health Equity Clinic will operate as a partnership with Hartford Hospital, Hartford HealthCare’s flagship acute-care hospital. Law students will learn about the complex intersection of poverty, health and law; the concept of health equity and its impact on health outcomes; how the law may be used to improve health; and how health care providers and lawyers can work together to create innovative and measurable interventions and remedies for patients and clients. Law students will work with medical staff in the hospital’s primary care clinics to see patients and conduct intakes and interviews. 

The clinic will provide on-site and remote consultations to Hartford Hospital’s clinical staff when health-harming legal issues intertwine with patient care. The focus will be on Hartford Hospital’s adult patients who present with a history of substandard outcomes, focusing on legal issues that impact outcomes, such as access to health care, food and income security, disability discrimination and program eligibility. 

Law students enrolled in the Health Equity Clinic will receive extensive training in the social determinants of health and will interact with patients in clinical settings by working with Hartford Hospital’s medical providers to identify and address the legal barriers that directly impact clinical care. The students will interact with patients and clinical staff and provide consultation services that are designed to enhance the holistic services offered by the clinical team. In addition, law students will collaborate with clinical experts in identifying and addressing systemic policy issues that can be addressed through this unique interdisciplinary clinic. 

The Health Equity Clinic will be the only adult-based medical-legal partnership in central Connecticut, and it will join a select group of academic, law school-based medical-legal partnerships around the country that combine the academic expertise of law school faculty with clinical experience and medical providers who regularly work with patient populations at risk.