St. Christopher's Hospital and The Legal Clinic for the Disabled Form Medical Legal Collaboration

St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and The Legal Clinic for the Disabled, Inc. (LCD), a non-profit organization providing free direct legal services to persons with disabilities and their families, today announce a program that provides support and legal expertise to low-income families in the Philadelphia area.

Legal services will be offered to families that receive pediatric care at St. Christopher’s by staff of the Legal Clinic for the Disabled, in conjunction with pro bono attorneys from Reed Smith LLP; law students from Temple University Center for Health Law, Policy, and Practice; and volunteer attorneys from the McAndrews Law Office and Audrey Allen Immigration Law LLC.

This program, dubbed “PhilaKids MLP” is one of the first of its kind in Philadelphia to provide legal support to children and their families in the pediatric setting. 

Linda Peyton, Executive Director of LCD, and Lee Pachter, DO, Chief of General Pediatrics at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and Associate Chair for Community Pediatrics, welcome the opportunity to enhance the overall health and well-being of St. Christopher's low-income patients by identifying and addressing unmet legal issues that impact or threaten to impact children's health care outcomes.

“Our opening of a medical legal collaboration with the Legal Clinic for the Disabled will be of immense benefit to our patients and their families, and will help us identify and remediate conditions that have profound effects on the health and development of our children,” says Dr. Lee Pachter, Chief of General Pediatrics.  “Not only will this collaboration provide direct services to our patients, but it will help train health care providers to better screen for social conditions that affect child health, and will allow for the medical and legal community to jointly advocate for systems change on the local, regional, and national level.”

“LCD welcomes the opportunity to work in collaboration with St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children to develop PhilaKids,” says Linda Peyton, Executive Director of LCD.  “By combining the strengths of both professions to identify legal ills that impact good health, this program will undoubtedly enhance healthcare outcomes for St. Christopher’s patients and their families.”

Says Heather Ritch, a senior associate in the Life Sciences Health Industry Group at Reed Smith LLP, Secretary of the Board of LCD, and 2003 graduate of Temple Law School, "What better way to bring Philadelphia's legal and medical communities together than to join forces to help kids in need."

Founded in 1990, LCD is a 6-attorney legal clinic founded on the principle of medical-legal collaboration to better serve its clients. LCD developed the first MLPs in Philadelphia, with existing sites at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital three nurse managed health centers of the Family Practice & Counseling Network. LCD also delivers legal services at Associated Services for the Blind (ASB), Inglis House, Milestone Deaf Services Center, and the Jewish Family and Children's Service (JFCS), as well as to the many other residents of Philadelphia and surrounding counties who seek its services. For more information, visit LCD online at www.lcdphila.org.

Since 1875, St. Christopher's Hospital for Children has been providing exceptional patient care and advancing new pediatric treatments through research and innovation. Through affiliations with Drexel University College of Medicine and Temple University School of Medicine, St. Christopher's is a teaching hospital helping to train the next generation of professionals in pediatric medicine.

The 189-bed hospital is committed to delivering high quality family- and patient-centered care to children from throughout the Philadelphia area and around the world. Its highly acclaimed programs include its Level I Pediatric Trauma Center; Level IIIC NICU, which is the highest NICU designation; Heart Center, Oncology/Transplant; as well as its Burn Center, which is the only dedicated pediatric burn center in the area. In 2009, St. Christopher’s achieved Magnet status, which is one of the nation's highest forms of recognition for nursing excellence, and numerous St. Chris physicians were recognized in regional publications as being “Top Docs” in their fields.

To learn more about St. Christopher’s, visit www.stchristophershospital.com. St. Christopher’s can also be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/StChrisHospital or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/stchrishospital.

###