Health Leads

Health Leads envisions a healthcare system that addresses all patients' basic resource needs as a standard part of quality care. Its mission is to catalyse the healthcare system by connecting patients with the basic resources they need to be healthy, and in doing so, build leaders with the conviction and ability to champion quality care for all patients.

The Health Leads approach is straightforward, yet innovative in its cost-effectiveness and scalability – by enabling healthcare providers to "prescribe" food, utilities or other critical resources, just as they would medication. Patients take these prescriptions to the clinic waiting room where Health Leads Advocates work side-by-side with the patients to connect them with the prescribed resources. To keep organizational costs low, Health Leads has tapped into an innovative labour supply: college students who work as patient advocates. By using college students, the model echoes the lay health worker model used by leaders in the global health community in providing a solution to clinics’ infrastructure deficits.