The National Health Care for the Homeless Council is thrilled to celebrate five years of the National Institute for Medical Respite Care! Launched July 15, 2020, NIMRC is a special program built to advance best practices, deliver expert consulting services, and disseminate state-of-field knowledge in recuperative and medical respite care.
Medical respite services have expanded rapidly in the past five years, with more than 200 programs now established nationwide. with programs now in at least 40 states. Through NIMRC, the Council’s medical respite team has collaborated with hundreds of providers, researchers, and advocates to curate timely, supportive programming and resources for new and established recuperative care programs alike.
A foundational aspect of NIMRC is creating intentional spaces for those in the medical respite community to connect and share their experiences.
“Folks in the medical respite field often report feeling like the only people who truly get their unique challenges are other medical respite providers,” says Julia Dobbins, Director of Medical Respite for NHCHC. Dobbins notes that, while some states on the forefront of the medical respite movement may have established multiple programs statewide, there are still wide swaths of the U.S. where there may be a single program of its kind for hundreds of miles.
In late 2024, the Council’s medical respite team, in partnership with the Respite Care Providers’ Network, a membership network of the Council, launched a series of recurring role-based virtual meetups for those in the field. These meetups make space for participants to share niche challenges and swap feedback, ideas, and knowledge in a peer-to-peer setting.
“This community offers so much collective wisdom and inspiration,” Dobbins says. “It’s a resource in and of itself.”
Five years after NIMRC’s launch, abrupt shifts in the federal policy landscape and related funding uncertainties are presenting a fresh round of challenges for healthcare providers serving people experiencing homelessness, including medical respite providers. That’s where the value of this uniquely connected community really shines, Dobbins says.
“For a lot of people, it’s that sense of community and shared purpose that really helps with resilience during challenging times,” she says. “This important work is never easy, but it certainly helps when you have a supportive community of peers at your fingertips.”
Cheers to Five Years of NIMRC Milestones!
- Published dozens of new resources, including 13 online courses, Standards for Medical Respite Care, and A Framework for Medical Respite Care.
- Designed, tested, and launched NIMRC Certification for Medical Respite Programs in April 2025 to help programs demonstrate quality and consistency to their clients, funders, and community partners.
- Hosted more than 100 trainings, webinars, coffee chats, and in-person meetings across the country including the 2024 California Recuperative Care Symposium.
- Regranted more than $5 million dollars directly to medical respite programs for development and capacity building. This includes facilitating more than 500 one-on-one technical assistance calls with programs and community partners.
- Supported multiple states in their efforts to make medical respite care a Medicaid reimbursable service through serving on statewide benefit-design workgroups and facilitating learning networks of medical respite programs, hospitals, and managed care plans.
