The Learning Health System Summit [Overview]

About the Summit

The Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation (KFF) convened a two-day Learning Health System (LHS) Summit on May 17 and 18 where over 80 prominent individuals representing organizations and stakeholders across the health care and health IT communities gathered at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  Participants worked together to begin laying key foundational elements that promise to harmonize and coalesce cutting-edge work presently underway into a national-scale LHS.

A multi-stakeholder, 16-member Planning Committee, including two former United States National Coordinators for Health Information Technology (Dr. David Blumenthal who served under a Democratic administration and Dr. Robert Kolodner who served under a Republican administration), has been working for the past half-year to plan the Summit.  The Planning Committee played an instrumental role in identifying participants to be invited and organizations to be represented at this limited-capacity, invitation-only Summit.

Motivation for the Summit

The Summit is propelled by a widely-shared sense of urgency to achieve a national-scale LHS.  Many organizations, each separately and in its own way, have taken the nation closer to an LHS. What is needed, now, is a concerted multi-stakeholder effort to put the entire nation on a coordinated forward trajectory.

Spiraling health care costs coupled to poor health outcomes and safety, the persistent latency between best practice knowledge and its actual application in practice, an inefficient public health and clinical outcomes research infrastructure, and many other factors combine to make a national-scale Learning Health System an imperative. The urgency of the need was stressed at an August meeting of the Institute of Medicine’s new Digital Learning Collaborative. At the same time, many health organizations are seeking to establish themselves as learning environments, or have largely achieved this status, and the nation is moving toward Meaningful Use of health information technology. We have reached a propitious moment, not unlike that which faced world leaders in 1944 who were attracted to the concept of a United Nations to prevent another global conflagration, but unclear about the precepts that would underlie its operation.

Goals of the Summit

The LHS Summit participants worked collaboratively to build consensus on principles that will serve to align, synergize, and harmonize the momentous efforts underway, leading them to converge on a path forward towards an LHS.

The primary intended outcome of the Summit will be an endorsed document expressing these core principles, from which an operating LHS could develop rapidly.

 

The Agenda

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Introductory Panel Discussion

Objective: Reinforce the importance of the LHS and establish the organizational character of the LHS.

The Learning Health System and the Principles (Charles Friedman)
Remarks by David Blumenthal
Remarks by Robert Kolodner
Complementarity of the Summit with IOM Activities (Michael McGinnis)

 

Breakout Group Discussions

Objective: Deepen our understanding of Learning Health System.

Principles: and identify points of concern for further discussion.

LHS Governance Presentation by Harry Cayton

Information Governance in the UK: Implications for the US Learning Health System, followed by general discussion of LHS governance.

Reception and Dinner

Joe Kanter and “e-Patient Dave” deBronkart speaking

 

Friday, May 18, 2012

Breakout Group Discussions

Objective: To arrive at a recommended modification of each principle based on the expressed concerns.

Group Reports and Plenary Discussion

Objective: To establish general consensus around each principle as modified, making further modifications as necessary.

Panel: A Working Learning Health System

Objective: To explore operational aspects of the LHS, connecting to the “Operational and Design Implications” in the Principles document.

Distributed Research Networks (Jeff Brown)

Outcomes Research Using a Learning Health System:

Promise and Pitfalls (Richard Tannen)

Learning Communities: Infrastructure and Early Experiences (Jim Walker)

 

Closing Session: Next Steps to Create a National-Scale Learning Health System

Objective: Propose and obtain reactions to a specific plan for post- Summit activity.

Plan for endorsement of the LHS Principles

Plan to create an “LHS Community”

 

Planning Committee Members

 

Ex Officio

Joseph Kanter

Chairman and Founder

Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation and Health Legacy Partnership

 

List of Participants

* = Member of the Learning Health System Summit Planning Committee

Laura Adams	Rhode Island Quality Institute
Salvatore Alesci	The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
Holt Anderson	North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA)
Dan Armijo	Altarum Institute
Brian Athey	University of Michigan
Michael Barr	American College of Physicians
Kate Berry	National eHealth Collaborative
David Blumenthal*	Partners HealthCare
Jeff Brown	The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute
Michael Cantor	Pfizer
Pascale Carayon	University of Wisconsin-Madison
Harry Cayton	The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence
AJ Chen	Healthline Networks
Adam Clark*	MedTran Health Strategies
Donna Cryer	CryerHealth
Jeremy Delinsky	athenahealth
Mark Dente	GE Healthcare
Coletta Dorado	AZZLY
Floyd Eisenberg	National Quality Forum
Lynn Etheredge	The George Washington University
Annette Ferebee	American Public Health Association
Charles Friedman*	University of Michigan
Tom Fritz	Inland Northwest Health Services (INHS)
Patricia Gabow	Denver Health
Douglas Gentile	Allscripts Healthcare Solutions
Jason Goldwater	eHealth Initiative
Claudia Grossmann*	Institute of Medicine (IOM)
Karl Gumpper	American Society of Health-System Pharmacists
Brad Hirsch	Duke Cancer Institute and Duke Clinical Research Institute
David Hoyt	American College of Surgeons
Lynn Hudson	Critical Path Institute
Stanley Huff	Intermountain Healthcare
Joseph Jacobson	Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Joe Kanter*	Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation
Charles Kennedy	Aetna
Sara Knight	United States Department of Veterans Affairs
Robert Kolodner*	Open Health Tools
George Komatsoulis	National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Jason Kreuter	American College of Cardiology
Gil Kuperman	American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
Rebecca Kush*	Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC)
Martin LaVenture	Minnesota Department of Health
Jack Lewin	Health Innovation Strategies
Allen Lichter*	American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
Susan Love	Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation
Kenneth Mandl	Boston Children’s Hospital
Janet Marchibroda*	Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)
Daniel Martich	UPMC
John Mattison	Kaiser Permanente
Michael McGinnis*	Institute of Medicine (IOM)
Deven McGraw	Center for Democracy & Technology
Dawn Milliner	Mayo Clinic
Gwen O’Keefe	Group Health Cooperative
Sally Okun	PatientsLikeMe
James O’Leary	Genetic Alliance
Robin Osborn	The Commonwealth Fund
Marc Overhage*	Siemens Healthcare
Doug Peddicord	Association of Clinical Research Organizations
Eric Perakslis	United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Jonathan Perlin	Hospital Corporation of America (HCA)
Ruth Perot	Summit Health Institute for Research and Education (SHIRE)
Paul Pomerantz	Drug Information Association
Chesley Richards	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Darryl Roberts	American Nurses Association
Frank Rockhold*	GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
Michael Rosenblatt	Merck & Co.
Josh Rubin*	Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation
Tehseen Salimi	Sanofi
Thomas Scarnecchia	Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH)
Joe Selby	Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
Joyce Sensmeier	Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
Jonathan Silverstein*	NorthShore University HealthSystem
Patricia Skarulis	Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Mark Smith	California HealthCare Foundation
Paul Stang	Johnson & Johnson
Richard Tannen*	University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Meredith Taylor	Markle Foundation
James Thomasell	Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP)
Howard Wactlar	National Science Foundation (NSF)
Steven Waldren	American Academy of Family Physicians
James Walker*	Geisinger Health System
Michael Weiner	United States Department of Defense
Stephen Weitzman	MedDATA Foundation
Jonathan White	Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Marcus Wilson	HealthCore

 

 

Download the Summit Brief