A Learning Health System Framework to Operationalize Health Data to Improve Quality Care: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

Our healthcare system faces a burgeoning aging population, rising complexity, and escalating costs. Around 10% of healthcare is harmful, and evidence is slow to implement. Innovation to deliver quality and sustainable health systems is vital, and the methods are challenging. The aim of this study is to describe the process and present a perspective on a coproduced Learning Health System framework. The development of the Framework was led by publicly funded, collaborative, Academic Health Research Translation Centres, with a mandate to integrate research into healthcare to deliver impact. The focus of the framework is "learning together for better health," with coproduction involving leadership by an expert panel, a systematic review, qualitative research, a stakeholder workshop, and iterative online feedback. The coproduced framework incorporates evidence from stakeholders, from research, from data (practice to data and data to new knowledge), and from implementation, to take new knowledge to practice. This continuous learning approach aims to deliver evidence-based healthcare improvement and is currently being implemented and evaluated.

Keywords: data-driven learning; healthcare improvement; learning health care system; quality; translational.

Figure 1

(A) Monash Partners Learning Health System framework. The framework shows four key sources of evidence, with each represented diagrammatically in a quadrant of the Learning Health System cycle. (B) Bullet points list the topics and functions incorporated under each sub-section in the overarching LHS framework. The numbers correspond to the numbered sections in the LHS framework shown in (A).