Creating Local Learning Health Systems: Think Globally, Act Locally

Abstract

Transforming the delivery of health care to maximize value, by measurably improving clinical outcomes while simultaneously reducing costs, is fundamental to reforming health care. Achieving such a goal requires fundamental changes to health care delivery, through so-called clinical transformation efforts that better align people, processes, and technology. As such efforts continue to gain momentum, they increasingly demonstrate the importance of weaving continuous and systematic evidence-generating medicine activities into routine practice. This model creates a continuous cycle of systematic care improvement by coupling evidence generation with evidence application to health care that embodies and enables the goals of the learning health system (LHS).