Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement,

and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore.

Our goal is to bring evidence and experience to illuminate critical public health issues.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhh.edu.

That's public health question at jh.hu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of public health on call.

Today, we are again turning the podcast over to guest host Dan Gorenstein, a longtime health

reporter and host of the podcast, tradeoffs.

The topic today is medical respite, a program for people who are too healthy to be hospitalized, but too sick to be without housing.

You can listen to this original episode and more at tradeoffs.org.

Let's listen.

If you've ever been discharged from a hospital, you know the drill.

You're likely to get sent home with a pile of instructions.

Take these pills twice a day.

Stay off your feet. Change your bandage. But what if you didn't have a home to go back to?

For homeless people, even such simple tasks can be impossible. On the street, their health

deteriorates. They go back to the hospital, and the cost of their

care climbs. We've had people who have had more than 60 emergency department visits over

two to three months. There is an alternative, an option for people too healthy for the hospital,

but too sick to be without housing.

It's called medical respite.

...