Healthier Together: Shared Purpose, Better Outcomes

At PR-COIN’s Spring Learning Session, Carole Lannon, MD, MPH, spoke on what she called the growing “movement” of Healthier Together that has been named one of the top innovations in health care. Healthier Together is a network of Learning Networks including PR-COIN, and these networks are all communities that accelerate outcomes.

Learning Networks like PR-COIN exist for a wide range of conditions and diseases. All are built on principles of improvement. PR-COIN was formed to improve outcomes for kids with rheumatic conditions. Lannon is Senior Faculty Lead of the Learning Networks Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where many of these networks were birthed. The impetus came when providers across disciplines began to think about how they could share and learn together to improve care.

Lannon described how one Learning Network sped up the transformation of research into practice. A physician in the network found existing data that use of digoxin reduced mortality. While the opportunity came up to apply for a PCORI grant,  parents within the network did not want to wait for a study when the data already existed. Instead, the information was put into a family-friendly summary, and after publication use of digoxin went up significantly.

“With a network, it does not take 17 years to get research into practice,” Lannon said.

Some networks are still forming, and some have moved out on their own, as PR-COIN did when it moved to be based out of Seattle Children’s Hospital. As this movement grows, the potential for better and faster outcomes grows with it.