Work

What can a learning healthcare system teach us about improving outcomes?

Year: 2021

Type: review

Abstract: PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review describes the learning healthcare system paradigm, recent examples, and future directions. Patients, clinicians, and health systems frequently encounter decisions between available treatments, technologies, and healthcare delivery methods with little or no evidence about the comparative effectiveness and safety of the available options. Learning healthcare systems endeavor to recognize such knowledge gaps, integrate comparative effectiveness research - including clinical trials - into clinical care to address the knowledge gaps, and seamlessly implement the results into practice to improve care and patient outcomes. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies comparing the effectiveness of diagnostic tests and treatments, using information technology to identify patients likely to experience an outcome or benefit from an intervention, and evaluating models of healthcare delivery have demonstrated how a learning healthcare system approach can reduce arbitrary variation in care, decrease cost, and improve patient outcomes. SUMMARY: Learning healthcare systems have the potential to answer questions of importance to patients, clinicians, and health system leaders, improve efficiency of healthcare delivery, and improve patient outcomes. Achieving this goal will require realignment of the culture around clinical care, institutional and federal investment, expanded stakeholder engagement, tailored ethical and regulatory guidance, and methodologic advances in information technology and biostatistics.

Source: Current Opinion in Critical Care

DOI: 10.1097/mcc.0000000000000857

Authors: Jonathan D. Casey, Katherine R. Courtright, Todd W. Rice, Matthew W. Semler

Institutions: Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania

Language: English

Topic: Health Policy Implementation Science

Subfield: General Health Professions

Field: Health Professions

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Center for Research Resources, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences