Putting Care at the Center: Annual Conference of the National Center for Complex Health & Social Needs

Putting Care at the Center is the annual conference of the National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AARP, and The Atlantic Philanthropies and housed within the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers.

Putting Care at the Center features expert health care, social services, research, and policy perspectives. The conference is an opportunity for innovators and advocates for health care delivery reform from across the country, both pioneers and newcomers, to meet, network, and create a shared agenda for the emerging field of complex care.

SIREN leadership will be presenting "Evaluating Social & Economic Interventions for Complex Populations" on Thursday from 11:20am - 12:30am PT and Friday from 9:20am - 10:30am PT.

Review the agenda. Register now.

All sessions at the meeting are likely to interest SIREN website users. The following sessions are those that are particularly focused on social needs or on research and evaluation issues:

Reducing Socio-Economic Barriers to Care for Vulnerable Populations
Nicole Friedman, Kaiser Permanente
Thursday Session | Friday Session
Financial concerns create barriers to health care access and often go unnoticed or insufficiently supported. Non-clinical Navigators screen patients for unmet social needs, can connect patients with the information they need and increase the care team's skills around resource needs and cost concerns. Navigators can address patients' needs for cost estimation, community resources, financial assistance, benefit coordination, and external resources. By brokering a patient-centered prioritization of needs, Navigators increase patient satisfaction and decrease provider stress.

The Integrated Primary Care and Community Supports (I-PaCS) Model: Partnering with MCOs to Target Funding to CHW Services to Address Complex Needs
Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, Families USA | Charles Alfero, Southwest Center for Health Innovation | Margarita Perez-Pulido, First Choice Community Healthcare
Thursday, 11:20am - 12:30pm
Integrating community health workers (CHWs) into care teams can have a significant, positive impact on health outcomes, costs, and health disparities, especially for people with complex needs. Yet securing a sustainable funding source for the breadth of CHWs’ valuable work is extremely challenging. We will describe an exciting new primary care model focused on people with complex health and social needs built on the full integration of CHWs that is funded directly by Medicaid Managed Care organizations. As a result, not only did health outcomes improve, but $4 were saved for every $1 invested.

Using Randomized Evaluations to Build the Evidence Base for Complex Care Programs
Wes Yin, Associate Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles | Anna Spier, Senior Policy Associate of J-PAL North America
Thursday, 11:20am - 12:30pm
The U.S. Healthcare Delivery Initiative (HCDI) at The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), supports randomized evaluations of strategies that aim to make health care delivery in the United States more efficient and more effective. Through a case-based training, we will provide workshop participants with skills and knowledge on how to rigorously evaluate programs centered on complex health and social needs. Workshop participants will learn the fundamentals of randomized evaluations and practical skills for program evaluation.

Evaluating Social & Economic Interventions for Complex Populations
Thursday Session: Jim Bellows, Kaiser Permanente | Caroline Fichtenberg, SIREN | Daniel Lessler, WA State Health Care Authority | Laura Gottlieb, SIREN | Maria Raven, University of California, San Francisco
Friday Session: Caroline Fichtenberg, SIREN | Daniel Lessler, WA State Health Care Authority | Laura Gottlieb, SIREN | Maria Raven, University of California, San Francisco | Steven Asch, Stanford University
Many complex care programs implemented in healthcare settings involve interventions that address patients’ social and economic needs as part of more comprehensive approaches to optimize health. However, program evaluations rarely focus on the effectiveness of addressing these social and economic needs elements or quantify their impact on program outcomes. This has limited the field’s ability to know how to most effectively implement interventions that address both health, social, and economic needs. This workshop will feature three researchers who study complex care interventions, each of whom will discuss opportunities and challenges to evaluating the health, financial, and social impacts of such programs.

Los Angeles County - A Perfect Storm
John Connolly, LA County Department of Health | Jerry Ramirez, Homeless Initiative LA County | David Howden, Corporation for Supportive Housing | Cheri Todoroff, Housing for Health, LA County Department of Health Services | Whitney Lawrence, Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool, LA County Department of Health Services | Susan S. Lee, Corporation for Supportive Housing
Friday, 9:20am - 10:30am
Representing local government and nonprofit agencies, facilitators will explore the confluence of supportive housing, intensive case management services and health care through the Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool model, Whole Person Care Los Angeles, Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System, and the Los Angeles Homeless Initiative (i.e., Measures H and HHH). The workshop will discuss L.A. County investment in supportive housing and intensive case management services.

What’s Going On? From Understanding Social Determinants of Health to Local Direct Action Organizing
Nancy Pope-White, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers Community Advisory Council | Rev Yvonne Lawrence-Sims, Camden Healthcare Coalition's Community Advisory Council | Soley Berrios, Hopeworks 'N Camden
Friday, 9:20am - 10:30am
The healthcare system in its current state has made many assumptions about patients and consumers without hearing their voices. Too often determinations and judgements have
been made by healthcare practitioners without truly understanding the root causes of conditions that may present in a provider’s office. Many of these root causes are the result of social determinants of health and lead to patients experiencing complex health and social needs. These root causes could be identified, in large part, by asking and including consumers, who have been admonishing the healthcare system to “talk to me, so you can see, what’s goin’ on.” Led primarily by consumers, “What’s Going On?” will equip consumers and community advocates with the knowledge, skills, and practical tools to identify systems, structures, policies, and practices within their local communities that may create
barriers to quality care in order to promote change.

Plenary #3: Learning from Parallel Social Movements
Anthony Iton, The California Endowment | Taeko Frost, Harm Reduction Coalition | Michael McBride, PICO Network Live Free Campaign | Jackie Judd, Kaiser Health News
Friday, 10:50am - 12pm
This panel will draw from the experiences of leaders from significant social movements. Panelists will share their personal challenges and triumphs as they work to empower the populations they serve. This panel will connect the long-time work of social justice movements to complex health and social needs priorities, and examine what current practitioners in this new field may learn as they serve their respective populations.

Plenary #4: Lessons from Complex Health in California
Sarita Mohanty, Kaiser Permanente | Sara de Guia, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network | Peter Long, Blue Shield of California Foundation | Jackie Judd, Kaiser Health News | Michael Katz, 
Health Agency and Department of Health Services Los Angeles County
Friday, 1:45pm - 3pm
This panel featuring prominent California health care leaders and advocates will reflect on the opportunities and challenges that the state currently faces. With California’s large, diverse population, participants will be able to learn from local and statewide policies and specific models of care that have shown success. Panelists will also share effective practices and research that have emerged, as well as lessons from MediCal 2020 and Whole-Person Care Pilots. Finally, the panelists will discuss sustainability for the state’s policies and how other communities and states can learn from California.