Learning Health System

Almost two decades ago, I founded the Kanter Family Foundation (KFF) with resources I accumulated over a long business career. KFF was born of the frustrations I faced as a prostate cancer patient unable to obtain scientific evidence about “what works best” in health care, based on the collective real-world experiences of other patients – evidence that would have helped me, and others like me, make better informed, life-or-death health decisions. The staff of KFF, my many colleagues in the public and private sectors, and I have been working tirelessly ever since to change that. What is today known as a Learning Health System, or LHS, will empower researchers, clinicians, and patients to learn from real-world health experiences of millions of patients as these experiences are increasingly recorded in electronic, computable form. Our nation’s fast march toward meaningful use of health IT will move us a giant step in the right direction by digitally capturing these health experiences as a byproduct of delivering care. However, much work still needs to be done to construct an LHS atop a foundation of meaningful use.

The LHS we aspire to build will be a gift that will touch the lives and health of those living today as well as future generations, including my five grandchildren. It is a gift I have been dreaming of giving to humanity for almost two decades. The work we are all doing will help transform this dream into a bold new reality ~ one in which we can all share.

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