What impact can a nurse and a community health worker have on the health of neighborhoods? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Neighborhood Nursing is the name of a new program aiming to improve the health of individuals and communities in Baltimore by embedding a nurse and a community health worker near at hand for residents. Sarah Szanton, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, describes the initiative.

 Szanton: We're planning a new program in Baltimore with the idea that everyone deserves a nurse and a community health worker,  divided geographically so that they go door to door, in the laundromats and the libraries and the senior high rises there's a nurse and a community health worker. We're starting with philanthropy. The idea would be that eventually insurers would pay for it because they would be saving that money and people would be healthier. And we're really trying to turn primary care on its head. In primary care we often see who comes to us, but what about the older adult who's homebound, what about someone who's homeless, what about someone who's just isn't thinking about prevention necessarily.   :33

Hopkins is working with other Baltimore universities to implement Neighborhood Nursing citywide. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.