The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine provides a home visit program, which has 2 main components:
CATCH: Pediatric residents from the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and medical students offer home visits to qualified families to help address social needs and non-medical determinants of health such as food insecurity, education and development, housing and legal aid, parenting and child care, child safety, trauma and violence prevention.
P2P partnership: Medicine residents and medical students conduct home visits and deliver produce from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. This is usually on the second Saturday of the month when the Food Bank holds Produce to People (P2P) distribution out of Faison K-5. The program gives priority to patients from Alma Illery Medical Center who otherwise would have difficulty obtaining the produce themselves secondary to physical disabilities or lack of transportation. Patients admitted to UPMC-Presbyterian-Montefiore who screened positive for social needs are also referred to the program. The home visit teams are able to check BP, blood sugar, do brief medical exam if needed, review medications, diet and physical activity, and answer any questions patients might have.
This program is provided free of charge. Although there are existing recruitment protocols through Jeremiah’s Place and AIMC, interested participants should contact the program coordinators through the CEC office.