Penn Med researchers awarded grant to train learning health system scientists

Penn researchers were awarded a $5 million grant for a program to train the next generation of learning health system scientists. 

The funding will be used to establish a Learning Health System training program called the Penn Patient-Oriented Research and Training to Accelerate Learning. The program will train scientists to “support the implementation of unbiased, patient-centered care delivery at hospitals throughout Philadelphia,” according to a Penn Medicine News announcement.

The announcement said that Penn PORTAL will unite a diverse group of scientific experts from four of Penn’s schools, long-standing community partners, and Accelerate Health Equity — a Philadelphia initiative addressing health equity and racism.

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a learning health system integrates internal data and experiences with external evidence to inform future practices. This is done by implementing the research findings gained from large-scale, randomized clinical trials or observational studies focusing on the quality, delivery, and equity of care, according to the announcement.

“The care of every individual patient should be informed by the care of all prior individual patients,” principal investigator for the project and Director of the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center Scott Halpern explained to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “We use that learning to inform how all of us across the health system and ideally across the world treat future patients,” Halpern said.

Halpern said that one of the grant's missions is to develop the careers of the next generation of learning health system scientists. The grant will support part of their salary for two years, train them in the principles of Learning Health System science, and aid their continued health system science studies.

The program also aims to help health system scientists write up their own health system science grants.

The funding will target aspiring independent investigators who are interested in researching learning health system science and full-time clinicians who show a continued interest in learning health system science, according to Halpern. He shared his hopes that these physicians will contribute to the research by offering leadership and expertise in a clinical context.

“We want to fund the best people with the best ideas,” Halpern said.

Halpern said that trainees of the Penn PORTAL program will work on a primary project that targets a specific question. He provided the example that a research project in learning health system science may involve improving care for mothers undergoing high-risk pregnancies or improving treatment for recovery from drug abuse.

Another of the grant's goals is “the development of common research assets and infrastructure that will support learning health system science across Penn Medicine,” he said.

Halpern said that he was excited to be running Penn PORTAL alongside Executive Director of the Penn Implementation Science Center Meghan Lane-Fall and Director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit — one of the first embedded behavioral economic units within a health system — Kit Delgado. 

“Going for this grant was an exciting opportunity to partner and bring out complementary skills together and find other like-minded folks from across campus who also wanted to further Penn’s Learning Health System mission,” Halpern said.

Penn PORTAL is a research program operating under the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center. The center consists of a group of about 60 individuals “united around the common goal of improving the lives of all people affected by serious illness and removing barriers to equitable delivery of serious illness care,” according to Halpern. 

“I’m really excited about the potential for Penn PORTAL to be the organizing impetus to take Penn Medicine to the next level of learning health system scientific excellence,” Halpern said. 

The primary sponsor of the grant is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and its secondary funder is the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.