Using Electronic Health Data for Research and Quality Improvement: A Summary of Innovations, Achievements, and Lessons Learned from the Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum, 2010–2013

In 2010 AcademyHealth received a three-year cooperative agreement to direct the EDM Forum as a part of the investments made by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in comparative effectiveness research (CER) infrastructure; these investments were funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The EDM Forum was charged with facilitating information exchange, accelerating collaboration in research and quality improvement (QI), and advancing the national dialogue on CER, patient-centered outcomes research, and QI efforts using electronic health data.

This summary highlights the EDM Forum's work to cultivate collaboration and innovation; accelerate the translation and dissemination of promising approaches; and spread innovations in governance, informatics, and analytic methods needed to build learning health systems. The EDM Forum’s growing network includes the nation’s leading experts and has generated more than 150 products and other resources to share best practices on the use of electronic health data, including more than 60 peer-reviewed articles by leading experts.