New Blueprint Creates a Roadmap for Strengthening Complex Care in the US

The Blueprint for Complex Care takes into account what work is already being done and outlines next steps to continue to change the way care is delivered to patients with complex health and social needs, said Teagan Kuruna, research writer at the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers.

Transcript

What is The Blueprint for Complex Care and what is its basic purpose?

The Blueprint is a collective strategy for the field of complex care, and its purpose is to lay out what we’re doing well in complex care and where we need to build on. We did this through a really intensive engagement process with stakeholders around the country, and from everything that we learned from them we built a set of recommendations for what we need to do in the near term to continue to strengthen complex care.

How is “complex care” being defined by the Blueprint?

Complex care is care for people whose poor health is linked to needs that defy the existing boundaries between sectors, fields, and professions. And what is really does is provide care for people that is person-centered, equitable, cross-sector, team-based, and data driven. And it does all of those things so that people can really start to live the healthy lives that they want to be living.

Why was there a need for a clear framework to advance the field of complex care?

So, complex care has been going on for a long time under a lot of different names. And the people who are doing complex care have been working alone or in small networks for a really long time. And what we saw was a need for everyone to come together and start working toward a common vision. So, the Blueprint is designed to be a catalyst for bringing people together and for all of us to move forward in the same direction, to start changing the systems and the ways that we provide care so that people can live healthy lives.

If healthcare is so local, what is the importance of going forward with one vision across the whole country?

We can all learn from each other and what somebody is doing out in California can be really relevant to something that somebody is doing in Tennessee. And if we’re all together and we talk to each other and know each other, we can, instead of trying to constantly make up something new to solve this problem, we can see who else is having similar issues or who is having successes that could be applicable to where we are.