When people released from prison or jail do not obtain necessary medication or treatment, they often relapse into substance abuse (sometimes to self-medicate), experience renewed symptoms of their illness, and/or suffer complications from chronic disease. All of these possibilities can endanger the person's health, prompt unnecessary and expensive emergency department usage, and expose correctional health care providers to litigation and liability. It is therefore critical that correctional health care providers educate inmates about their need for continuing care upon release to the community. Ideally, a conversation about the meaning of and need for continuity of care in the community should conclude the process of health education initiated at the outset of the prisoner's care in the correctional facility. (See Policy Statement 10, Physical Health Care, for more on providing health education to people during their incarceration.) More specifically, the conversation should cover the person's treatment during incarceration and what he or she should expect from treatment (or the failure to obtain it) in the community. Correctional health care providers must educate people leaving correctional facilities about the proper administration of prescribed medication, as well as the critical importance of precise compliance with the medication regimen and follow-up treatment. Ultimately, an individual can sustain his or her health in the community only if he or she personally appreciates the need to seek and maintain health treatment and medication; it is up to the corrections-based health care provider, however, to equip the individual with the tools to reach that understanding.

As noted above, any person leaving prison or jail should receive a copy of his or her summary health record to take with him or her and should understand the importance of passing information about his or her current status along to community providers. Health care providers should also discuss pertinent laboratory and diagnostic tests with people who are in prison or jail and give them additional copies for subsequent clinicians. As correctional health care providers advise re-entering individuals about their referrals to community providers, the corrections-based providers should make sure that they understand where and when they need to go to obtain treatment, as well as the nature of any preset appointments. In addition, people released from prison or jail should obtain contact information for the correctional health care providers who treated them, so that future providers may reach out to these providers for more information, if necessary.

Example: Aftercare Planning in Health Services, North Carolina Department of Corrections Division of Prisons

Aftercare Planning in the North Carolina Division of Prisons builds on the prisoner health education that begins upon intake or diagnosis of a particular health condition. Clinical staff engage in one-on-one consultations with affected individuals; a social worker then devises a holistic aftercare plan and completes a form with referrals to relevant service agencies in the community to which the individual will return. Upon release, each person receives a copy of the form and of his or her medical record in a packet that also includes information on other linkages, a social security card, driver's license, and records of programs that he or she has completed.