ABSTRACT
The task of health care is to produce better health and social value. Learning health systems are not only a technological challenge, they also require cultural change. A Learning Health System is contingent upon a dynamic ‘virtuous cycle’ starting with the clinician–patient interface and dependent upon trusted interdisciplinary and inter-organisational interaction, alignment and transparency, as well as advanced and secure data systems, data linkage and analytic capacity. The technical and organisational developments associated with the industrialisation of health care provide opportunities while demographic pressures and austerity, with an increasingly aged and multimorbid population in an increasingly resource-constrained health system, generate a necessity for smarter working. By 2016, there were other emerging UK initiatives towards Learning Health Systems aiming to integrate health and social care – for example, the Salford Integrated Record, Greater Manchester Academic Health Science Network and Connected Cities initiatives, seeking to connect health and social services using digital technologies.
