Starting and operating a new complex care program means understanding how existing systems of care fail to support people with complex health and social needs and building new staffing structures, workflows, processes, and partnerships to better meet those needs. That’s hard work! How do you even know where to start?

When talking with our partners and our local team in Camden, we’ve heard the same challenges: difficulty identifying and engaging individuals with complex needs, obstacles in hiring and managing a team, and challenges in figuring out which metrics can and should be collected and analyzed. Many complex care teams have addressed these challenges on their own because they did not have access to the lessons already learned by their peers across the country. This has resulted in unnecessary duplication of efforts and resources — organizations find themselves reinventing the wheel over and over instead of building on each other’s work.

To bridge this gap between complex care organizations and reduce duplication, our National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, released the Complex Care Startup Toolkit. This toolkit is a compendium of best practice tools and resources for new and developing complex care programs, regardless of setting, population, or geography and includes resources in the categories of:

1. Program design
2. Program operations
3. Data and process improvement
4. Team and leadership development
5. Community mapping and collaboration
6. Communication and growth of success

The toolkit is designed to both provide a foundation for a new complex care program as well as “just-in-time” resources for managers trying to quickly develop job descriptions, workflows, or dashboards. It also showcases over 200 how-to guides, templates, and examples from programs and organizations around the country.

Join us for a webinar on July 15, 2021 at 2 pm ET to learn more about the Complex Care Startup Toolkit and to hear from two of its contributors:. 

• Dr. Dave Moskowitz of Navvis Healthcare will share insights into an activity he developed to establish role clarity on his team. 
• Emily Wasuna of the Camden Coalition will introduce a toolkit for medications for addiction treatment (MAT) providers. 

Additionally, staff and subject matter experts from the National Center will demonstrate how to use the toolkit and answer questions from new or developing complex care teams.

The Complex Care Startup Toolkit is designed to be a hub for the most up-to-date and best resources for complex care teams. It will be updated periodically with resources, tools, and templates submitted by people like you! If you’re interested in the National Center showcasing your work, we encourage you to submit the resources, tools, and templates you are most proud of to be considered for the next updated version, Complex Care Startup Toolkit version 2.0. We hope you join our efforts to help complex care teams around the country build their programs to better support people with complex health and social needs.