The Putting Care at the Center Meeting Improves Care for Complex Patients and Shares Best Practices

The Putting Care at the Center meeting, being held December 5-7 in Chicago, Illinois, is the only meeting solely dedicated to sharing best learnings about delivering care to patients with complex health and social needs. People who attend the meeting will be able to meet others from around the country who are putting plans into action and attend panel discussions and workshops, explained Mavis Asiedu-Frimpong, director for national initiatives at the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers.

Transcript

Across the country, there are different delivery models being tested to care for patients with complex health and social needs. What is the importance of a meeting like Putting Care at the Center to bring all people together to discuss results of these models?

In conceiving of The National Center, we did a lot of interviews with people in the field who care about this issue. And over and over again, we heard a desire for a convene-and-engage element for the community.

And so, The National Center’s Putting Care at the Center conference is exactly that. It is the only conference in America that is focused on complex care. And so, it brings together people who are working on this issue from across the country to talk about the challenges of really advancing the field. Talking about the successes that they’ve had. Making connections that will lead to programs that are going to lead to better care for the individuals that they serve.

So, the workshops that we offer, the learning sessions, the experts that we bring in from the surrounding community and across the nation, they really come together to extract learning and take that back. That is the point of the conference, and we’ve seen it be successful. And we are looking forward to seeing the familiar faces that come every year, because it’s a valuable experience for them. We’re looking forward to seeing the new people that really are a testament to the reach that The National Center and its partners are having across the field.

And we’re looking forward to using the event, as we do every year, to really think about what kind of content we should be delivering next year and beyond. We aim to provide the very best content, it is an event that strives to support the field, to inspire people to join the complex care community, to connect people with each other, to support the field with tools and resources. And we are excited to do that this year and also into the future, as well.

Why do you think Putting Care at the Center, which will be held December 5-7 in Chicago, Illinois, is the only conference that focuses on complex care?

The National Center is one organization that is focused on this work, but we work with a community of organizations that care about this issue, as well. So, The National Center cannot do it alone, and we wouldn’t want to. It takes tremendous partnership, tremendous relationship building, and tremendous connectivity to be able to advance the field.

And so, there are convenings and meetings that happen across the country that touch on this issue, that highlight this issue, but this is the meeting for which the content is exclusively focused on how to better serve individuals who are complex.

What are you looking forward to most at this year's Putting Care at the Center?

I am looking forward to, as I mentioned before, seeing the familiar faces of people who come back again and again because it’s a valuable experience. I’m looking forward to meeting new people who say, “I do this work every day, I just didn’t call it complex care. I didn’t know that this community existed, and I want to learn more. I want to be involved. I want to share what I’m doing with you. I want to learn about what you’re doing in the field.”

And I’m really looking forward to talking to people about what they value about this convene-and-engage element for the field, and how we can improve upon it every year, to deliver the best content and bring people together for a really special networking experience,

What can attendees expect at this year's Putting Care at the Center?

You can expect to meet a wide variety of people from across the nation who are thinking about this issue, who care about this issue, and who are wanting to bring the learning that they receive at the conference back to their own communities.

You can expect panel discussions that are uplifting and motivational. You can expect workshops that are interactive and practical, and are really the venue for today: what can I do today in my community to make things better? You can expect other learning sessions and what we’re calling our Beehive, which is this huge interactive space where there are films being shown, poster discussions, conversations, and roundtables, where you can talk to people about what the innovation for the future might be, and how you can maximize that in your own community.

So, you can expect a really comprehensive experience that will be unlike anything that you’ve ever experience before.