Dear National Center partners,

Since I joined the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers as CEO in March, I have had the privilege of leading our regional, state, and national complex care initiatives, including our National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs. It is an exciting moment to be leading this work: we’re seeing an increasing embrace of coordinated, person-centered care in communities across the country, as well as inspiring examples of innovation that push the limits of this new complex care field.

We also know that there is much more to learn. Which interventions work best for which subpopulations? What is the recipe for success in facilitating cross-sector collaboration? What meaningful outcome measures besides cost and utilization can we use to evaluate and compare complex care programs? How can we scale successful complex care models beyond a single site? Answering these questions can’t be the work of a single organization, but will require engagement from across the field.

We’re setting the stage to answer these questions by releasing the Blueprint for Complex Care, a document that will provide a shared framework for the field as it continues to coalesce. The Blueprint is a collective project: along with the Center for Health Care Strategies and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, we delved into the literature on field-building and heard from hundreds of individuals working in complex care across the country, including many of you. The finished product will provide guidance, structure, and direction as we build on the field’s strengths and address its weaknesses.

Activating the Blueprint’s recommendations will take leadership and engagement across organizations and sectors, and as an established convener for the field, the National Center is well-positioned to shepherd the process. I look forward to drawing on our 15 years of experience serving patients with complex health and social needs in Camden and South Jersey, as well as the relationships we have built across the country, as we collectively construct the infrastructure needed to support a strong and vibrant field.

Our national conference, Putting Care at the Center 2018, is the perfect place to continue the discussion about advancing the field of complex care. We’ll officially unveil the Blueprint at the event, and we want you to be part of it. It will take all of us working together—consumers, providers, administrators, researchers, payers, policymakers, and others—to redesign systems of care around the needs of the most vulnerable. Thank you for your critical contributions to this work, and I look forward to meeting and learning from each of you at this year’s conference and beyond.

Kathleen Noonan
CEO, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers