Information sharing in Medical-Legal Partnerships: Foundational concepts and resources

This brief is intended for use by participants in Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) as an overview and analysis of the legal issues relevant to interdisciplinary information sharing. MLPs bring healthcare practitioners and legal services providers together to address civil legal issues that present a barrier to a patient’s good health. In order to effectively facilitate patient access to the legal services that can ultimately improve health, it is critical that healthcare practitioners and legal services providers be able to share information. MLPs are designed to encourage and enable this communication, but the information privacy legal framework may still present obstacles, both real and perceived, to effective information sharing.