Boston Health Equity & Community-Aligned Learning Health System (HEALHS)

Boston Health Equity & Community-Aligned Learning Health System (HEALHS) is an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)- funded program to expand community-engaged Learning Health Systems (LHS) research and training focused on advancing equitable care in a safety-net setting. 

LHS strive to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care delivery through integration of existing evidence with internal data to improve practice and generate new evidence. As a result, patients get higher quality, safer, more efficient care, and health care delivery organizations become better places to work. LHS have leaders committed to a culture of continuous learning and improvement. LHS systematically gather and apply evidence in real-time to guide care, employ information technology (IT) methods to share new evidence with clinicians to improve decision-making, promote the inclusion of patients as vital members of the learning team, capture and analyze data and care experiences to improve care, and continually assess outcomes to refine processes and training for learning and improvement.

Boston HEALHS is led by BMC clinician-scientists Megan Bair-Merritt, MD, MSCE and Mike Fischer, MD, MS. Bair-Merritt is BMC’s Chief Scientific Officer and Fischer is Chief of General Internal Medicine. The executive committee includes Kim Brimhall, PhD; Mari-Lynn Drainoni, PhD, MEd; Marc Larochelle, MD, MPH; Bill Adams, MD; Nick Bosch, MD, MSc; and Lori Henault, MPH. 

Boston HEALHS Research Education Core (REC)

The Boston HEALHS Research Education Core, led by Drainoni and Larochelle, supports a diverse cadre of scientists to gain skills, expertise, and experience in LHS competencies, as applied within a safety net system. The REC provides scholars with information and resources to get mentorship and training in LHS competencies building on and adapting existing didactic and experiential educational resources across an academic safety net health system. 

Boston HEALHS Research Data and Analytics Core (RDAC)

The Boston HEALHS Research Data and Analytics Core, led by Adams and Bosch, provides scientific rigor across LHS competencies in community engagement methods, research design, informatics, and project execution. The team ensures effective community engagement, rigorous research methods, robust data infrastructures, and efficient implementation and dissemination of findings.