From theory to action: Join us for the Complex Care Leadership Summit
Building the complex care field Strengthening ecosystems of care Convening Education & training
In the field of complex care, we spend our days navigating systems that weren’t built for the people we serve. The challenges—from fragmented data to workforce burnout—are immense, and the solutions aren’t found in a textbook. They are found in the collective experience of the people doing the work.
To capture that energy, we are organizing a Complex Care Leadership Summit, a pre-conference opportunity at Putting Care at the Center 2026! We’re inviting program leaders to bring a relevant challenge (see below) facing their organization or community, and together we’ll spend two days brainstorming, exchanging strategies, and creating action plans. This isn’t a sit-and-listen event; it is a high-intensity, collaborative working meeting designed for program leaders in complex care who are eager to move past high-level concepts and into concrete implementation.
The goal: Stop guessing, start executing
We all face similar hurdles, but we are often left to solve them on our own. We piloted the Complex Care Leadership Summit in 2025 during which leaders from Boston Medical Center, University Hospitals, Los Angeles County Health and Human Services, and the Camden Coalition spent our time in a “collective brain trust” where we exchanged proven strategies and pressure-tested new ideas.
Last year we focused on four pillars of a high-functioning complex care program:
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Program design:
We moved past theory and got honest about which operational models are actually lean and clinically sound. We leaned into our failures as much as our successes. The conversations were dynamic as we often found a detail or single element that could be a game changer!
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Proving impact:
We brainstormed how to track the data—ROI and hospital utilization—that actually convinces payers that “doing good” is also good business.
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Staff resilience:
We had some raw conversations about burnout and concrete strategies for keeping our best people in the game.
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Breaking silos:
We mapped out how to actually integrate health systems with community partners so our patients stop falling through the cracks.
Leaving with a plan
We didn’t just leave with a notebook full of ideas. Each attendee left with draft Implementation Plans to address an organizational challenge. Through facilitated brainstorming and peer-exchange sessions, we refined a specific challenge into a step-by-step roadmap to take back to our organizations. We left feeling refreshed, energized, and supported by a group of our peers who intimately understood our challenges, goals, and work experience. We formed a deeply engaged and highly productive peer learning community that realized our collective experiences, no matter our nuanced differences, will be the force that helps to improve healthcare.
Complex Care Leadership Summit 2026
This year we are bringing the same energy and focus on implementation to a new set of challenges. We will be exploring:
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Measuring and demonstrating impact:
What innovative metrics can programs use to demonstrate their impact, and how can we ensure these metrics are reproducible, relevant, relatively comprehensive, and not overly burdensome?
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Program structure design and integration:
When and how do program leaders decide to adjust overall program structure in response to these changing needs? What best practices can help smooth these transitions?
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Supporting recruitment, resiliency, and retention:
How do we best identify staff who can succeed in complex care roles, bring them into our programs, and support staff resiliency and longevity in the field?
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Partner access and integration:
How can complex care staff best partner with providers and social service systems to ensure access and support timely information exchange to advance the goals of patients?
Join us this October
We welcome program leadership teams (at least two people from an organization or from partner organizations) of existing complex care programs to attend. All attendees should be decision-makers for program design and implementation.
Check out the Complex care leadership summit page more information and to register. For any additional questions, contact Rebecca Koppel.