The National Academy of Medicine recently released “The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity,” a consensus study with recommendations for the next decade of the nursing profession. The Camden Core Model, the Camden Coalition’s signature care management model for individuals with complex health and social needs, was highlighted as an exemplar nurse-led model in the report. 

Both complex care and health equity are key areas of focus in the report, which includes a call to “increase the types and amount of high-quality healthcare services that can be provided to those with complex health and social needs and improve both access to care and health equity” by increasing the capacity of the nursing workforce.

“We are honored to have our work highlighted in the ‘Future of Nursing’ report as a way to achieve health equity,” says our CEO Kathleen Noonan. “Through our experience working with individuals in Camden as well as nationally, we see the need for cross-sector, collaborative approaches to help individuals with complex health and social needs achieve better health and well-being.”

The Future of Nursing report notes our care teams’ focus on authentic healing relationships between patients and care team members, and the COACH framework we created to facilitate those relationships, as key to our success. Also critical, it notes, is our emphasis on “recruiting nurses who are from the local community, capitalizing on their cultural and systems-level knowledge to facilitate and improve access to and utilization of local health and social services.” 

“Working on the care team and engaging with our community partners and participants — you feel the power and see the importance of what we have been doing over the past 15 years,” says Gladys Antelo, a nurse from Camden who worked on our care team for four years before joining our technical assistance team to help other organizations start and strengthen their own complex care models. “Working with other systems across the nation and learning about the amazing work that nurses are leading within their own communities also heightens that sense of being a part of a larger movement. I am just humbled and proud to be a small part of it.”

Renee Murray is another of our nurses on staff who worked with patients on the care team before moving to technical assistance. “Nurses play a critical role in changing the landscape of care delivery to ensure a holistic and equitable approach, and we are so thrilled to be leading the way,” she says. 

The report also highlights the work of our Senior Advisor Lauran Hardin, a nurse who earlier in her career worked with system leaders to implement the “Complex Care Center Model” at Mercy Saint Mary’s and Mercy Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The “Complex Care Center Model” focuses on cross-sector, patient-centered care management that has been shown to reduce emergency department use, hospitalizations, lengths of stay, and costs, and increase primary care visits, stable housing, and healthcare coverage. Lauran, like Gladys and Renee, is now part of our technical assistance team. She has worked with colleagues at the Camden Coalition to help Adventist Health in Clearlake, California, and Regional One Health in Memphis, Tennessee to implement and scale their own complex care models.

“I am so proud of the work that has been done at institutions across the country to create a whole-person approach to care,” Lauran says. “I hope to continue sharing best practices and helping engaged members of the nursing profession build a value case to garner support from the C-suite for implementing models like these at their organizations.”

Download the full Future of Nursing 2020-2030 report and read the consensus recommendations for how the nursing profession can work toward health equity in the next decade here.