CSH Presents at the North American Housing “Innovation in Action” Conference

On September 25, CSH’s Kristin Miller and Pascale Leone of New York participated in the 7th Annual North American Housing and Special Needs Populations Conference in Niagara Falls. The conference, themed “Innovations in Action”, brought together over 250 conference attendees from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada.

Kristin Miller helped to kick off the events as a panelist on the opening panel, “Innovations in Action – Plans for the Future” alongside members from various New York State agencies including the NYS Department of Health, Office of Mental Health, and the Office with People with Developmental Disabilities, and the Supportive Housing Network of NY. The panel focused on the latest innovate work in supportive housing happening across New York State.

Kristin and Pascale also provided a workshop on the housing and health integration efforts underway in New York including the Delivery Service Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program set to begin in April 2015 along with a number of other Medicaid Redesign initiatives. The DSRIP program is currently in its planning year.

The workshop Frequent Users Systems Engagement (FUSE) focused on opportunities for housing and health care providers to partner together to better target high-need, high cost frequent users of hospital and other crisis systems to improve health outcomes while reducing costs. The main objective of the state’s DSRIP program is to reduce avoidable hospital use by 25% in 5 years. CSH presented on its signature Frequent Users Systems Engagement (FUSE) model as a way to successfully identify and engage frequent users in housing interventions – breaking the costly cycle of multiple systems use among homeless individuals with complex health challenges to keep them stable as a way to promote improved health outcomes.

“The state cannot achieve its goal of reducing avoidable hospital visits without stable housing with support services wrapped around the most vulnerable individuals in our state,” added Kristin Miller “DSRIP provides an unprecedented opportunity to change the way health care is delivered in our state through a more collaborative, integrated and meaningful process.”