The Learning Healthcare System is the first formal product of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine. It is a summary of a two-day workshop held in July 2006, convened to consider the broad range of issues important to reengineering clinical research and healthcare delivery so that evidence is available when it is needed, and applied in health care that is both more effective and more efficient than we have today. Embedded in these pages can be found discussions of the myriad issues that must be engaged if we are to transform the way evidence is generated and used to improve health and health care—issues such as the potential for new research methods to enhance the speed and reliability with which evidence is developed, the standards of evidence to be used in making clinical recommendations and decisions, overcoming the technical and regulatory barriers to broader use of clinical data for research insights, and effective communication to providers and the public about the dynamic nature of evidence and how it can be used. Ultimately, our hope and expectation are that the process of generating and applying the best evidence will be natural and seamless components of the process of care itself, as part of a learning healthcare system.
Copyright © 2007, National Academy of Sciences.