What do Miley Cyrus and holistic medical care have in common? Foam fingers, bears, and twerking aside, both are at the center of a movement. Miley’s movement is more about shock and confusion than substance, but the same cannot be said for the movement to provide more effective healthcare that is sweeping the nation. Medical-Legal partnerships are not alone in this quest. Across the country, legislators, lawyers, healthcare practitioners, social workers, and advocates for America’s poorest are realizing that there is no single, easily identifiable cause of poor health or poverty and that simple, one-dimensional solutions are ineffective. “The Hot Spotters,” an article that appeared in The New Yorker on January 24, 2011, highlights several champions of effective healthcare. Jeff Brenner studied the patterns of patients entering hospitals in Camden, New Jersey and found that, of the 100,000 people using medical facilities in Camden, about 1,000 people accounted for 30% of the city’s med...
