International Street Medicine Symposium XIII

October 19-21, 2017 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA

Great News about our Successful Event!

The 13th annual International Street Medicine Symposium, held October 19-21, 2017, in Allentown, Pennsylvania was a great success! Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) Street Medicine generously agreed to serve as the local sponsoring organization.  Through our collaborative efforts, nearly 500 individuals registered for one or several of the broad range of informative sessions.  We were delighted to host individuals from 85 cities and 14 countries located on 5 continents.

Host City Spotlight

Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA, was chosen to be the 2017 ISMS host city from a group of outstanding international host city candidates because it is the home of Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Street Medicine program (LVHN Street Medicine).  LVHN has demonstrated the ability to build an exemplary street medicine program that provides a “homeless-centered medical home,” following patients across the continuum from the street to shelter and inpatient hospital setting. LVHN Street Medicine serves a region referred to as the Lehigh Valley, which is made up of three mid-sized cities in Pennsylvania: Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton. The Street Medicine Institute believes that Street Medicine should be available in all cities where there are unsheltered homeless residents. With the enlarging network of Street Medicine practitioners providing care in cities of all sizes, this symposium presents an opportunity to visit an outstanding program in a mid-sized city.

LVHN Street Medicine is housed in a large regionally-based hospital network and provides a framework for how Street Medicine can fit into a traditional hospital system. Attendees were provided detailed information on the blueprint used to create such a program and the logistics of how care is provided on the street to people sleeping rough in the area.

Program highlights included:

  • A robust hospital-based consult service showing drastic decreases in readmission rates from 31% to 12% in 1 year
  • Multiple soup kitchen and shelter-based clinics
  • Medical Legal Partnership to assist patients in resolving benefit and landlord issues
  • Sophisticated transition of care process for patients seen by Street Medicine who require treatment in a traditional healthcare setting

Other highlights for attendees included:

  • Information on how the program has developed and is maintained from a medical-legal perspective
  • Details on performing financial benefit analysis for Street Medicine programs
  • The role that metrics and data have played in demonstrating the high-quality care that can be delivered on the street
  • A consumer panel with perspectives from the streets

Program Schedule 

Click HERE for the final program schedule

Street Medicine 101 Workshop 

Back by popular demand, we were pleased to offer this special pre-symposium workshop once again. This high-yield introductory session is targeted to those individuals and organizations that may be new to Street Medicine or in need of expert guidance to launch or enhance their Street Medicine activities. This workshop provides an instructive overview of the history, principles, and practice of Street Medicine, followed by breakout sessions with experts in the field for personalized guidance and problem-solving. Since capacity for this workshop is limited and there is always high demand, participants must register in advance to attend.