Linking Former Inmates to Primary Care

The Transitions Clinic Network (TCN) is a network of 13 community-based transitional healthcare programs, which aim to improve health, improve health care, and lower costs for vulnerable, high-risk Medicaid patients returning from prison across the United States. The TCN aims to connect individuals released from prison to primary care using trained, culturally competent primary care providers and community health workers (CHWs). The providers and CHWs, help patients obtain timely healthcare; promote healthy reintegration into their communities; provide care coordination and chronic disease management; and prevent unnecessary emergency department utilization and hospitalizations.

The project supports ongoing quality improvement at each of the 13 clinical sites by measuring the health, health care utilization, and the costs of caring for recently released patients. We will prospectively examine the rates of primary care engagement, acute care utilization, substance abuse and reported health, and recidivism in a cohort of 2000 patients recently released from prison receiving primary care at the 13 TCN programs. We will compare these rates of utilization at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36 months to patient self-reported utilization prior to incarceration and historical controls.

Additionally, we aim to describe the implementation of, fidelity to, and sustainability of the TCN model in each of these clinical programs. Specifically, we aim to capture assets and barriers to starting and sustaining primary care programs targeting returning prisoners.