Despite enormous efforts at healthcare improvement, major challenges remain in achieving optimal outcomes, safety, cost, and value. This Element introduces the concept of learning health systems, which have been proposed as a possible solution. Though many different variants of the concept exist, they share a learning cycle of capturing data from practice, turning it into knowledge, and putting knowledge back into practice. How learning systems are implemented is highly variable. This Element emphasises that they are sociotechnical systems and offers a structured framework to consider their design and operation. It offers a critique of the learning health system approach, recognising that more has been said about the aspiration than perhaps has been delivered. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Despite enormous efforts at healthcare improvement, major challenges remain in achieving optimal outcomes, safety, cost, and value. This Element introduces the concept of learning health systems, which have been proposed as a possible solution. Though many different variants of the concept exist, they share a learning cycle of capturing data from practice, turning it into knowledge, and putting knowledge back into practice. How learning systems are implemented is highly variable. This Element emphasises that they are sociotechnical systems and offers a structured framework to consider their design and operation. It offers a critique of the learning health system approach, recognising that more has been said about the aspiration than perhaps has been delivered. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.