With constant changes in practice, we need better systems to generate and apply knowledge to enhance outcomes and experience for patients. A learning health system is a cultural strategy to do this using technology to improve the use of research evidence, staff knowhow, learning from experience and organisational memory. In this way we become an organisation skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying our behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights.
A learning health system involves drawing on evidence in real-time whilst simultaneously drawing knowledge from real-world practice. In this way, evidence informs practice and practice informs evidence. It helps us to identify ‘what matters’ from multiple perspectives of patients, of staff, of our population. The hallmarks of a learning health system are the vital partnerships between academic research and clinical staff and, most importantly, a shared commitment for improvement.
A key principle in the development of the Plan for the Future is co-production, working with our local population and users of services to understand what is important and to influence the delivery of care. A learning health system can support this approach in an ongoing way, where problems are identified through real-time data and feedback. Alongside commitment from clinical teams, a technological infrastructure will support the automation of data to influence daily practice. In this way, we can realise the potential of ‘big data’ to identify problems and solutions in healthcare practice and modern public health surveillance. Implementing these changes will start with defined projects and build incrementally, allowing learning as we go. One example of the approach was how we learned and acted on qualitative and quantitative data for an effective, targeted local COVID-19 outbreak response which also influenced national policy.
Building on this, we have now developed an infrastructure for other real-time data feeds to support health protection.
Evidence suggests four components of a learning health system:
- Learning from data
- Harnessing technology
- Nurturing learning communities
- Implementing improvements to services
Each are important in their own right, but bringing them together makes for the greater sum of the parts. Becoming a learning health system is our way of developing a sustainable way forward for health and care.
Additional Reading
Learning Health Systems: Background