Today’s health care stakeholders face unprecedented and rapid changes to the infrastructure and norms that have been integral to health care practice, policy, and ongoing improvement for nearly a century. As we adapt and realign priorities, plans, and shared learning opportunities, we are guided by this question: what strengths might we draw on and new collaborations might we seek to weather this moment?
Lean on your community
It is human nature to come together and find support in community in times of uncertainty. At the UPMC Center for High-Value Health Care (Center), we are doing just that. For more than a decade, our research team has collaborated with a variety of interdisciplinary and multi-sector stakeholders to align, build, and cultivate a robust learning community. This community engages in patient-outcomes research and program evaluation. We work together to drive payment, practice, and service delivery innovations with the goal of improving the health and wellbeing of those we serve.
Our recent paper in Learning Health Systems, “Aligning forces to accelerate healthcare transformation: Insights from the UPMC Learning Community” describes how learning communities like ours work together and can accelerate transformation toward a high-value health care system. We present examples demonstrating how our health system collaborated with multiple stakeholders to drive payment, practice, and service delivery innovations. We also provide insights into the importance of structured learning communities for enhancing evidence generation and explain how our learnings helped lead to changes that improve clinical decision making and patient outcomes.
Meet the moment
Many key funding streams in health care ecosystems are under review or have been recently modified and the learning community framework has perhaps become an even more valuable tool in the stakeholder-driven research arsenal. We believe that learning communities are advantageously positioned to weather the challenges and changes that all health care stakeholders are currently facing.
So, how are we meeting the moment?
Capacity Building
In 2023, UPMC was one of 42 health systems nationwide selected to participate in the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI®) Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII) and awarded funding to build capacity to prepare our learning community stakeholders to implement and evaluate evidence-based practice resulting from PCORI-funded research findings. This spring we were awarded additional PCORI funding to implement a team-based approach to hypertension management at 130 primary care sites across UPMC’s network. The capacity building at the root of the hypertension implementation project not only helps our learning community address a common chronic illness now – it can also catalyze future collaborative work.*
Implementation and Evaluation
In fall of 2024, we received a Health Services Research Administration (HRSA) award to advance maternal health by leveraging telehealth to integrate behavioral health into rural health care settings in UPMC’s provider network. This project builds on a previous effort, also funded by PCORI, where we worked with stakeholders across Pennsylvania to develop and execute a rural maternal health research agenda.
The “Evidence-Based, Telehealth-Enabled Perinatal Collaborative Care Model (TE-PCoCM)” project** draws on existing evidence for increasing depression and anxiety screening rates, enhancing behavioral health care engagement, and improving depression symptoms. Participants in a rural, underserved region in UPMC’s footprint will be able to access perinatal-focused telepsychiatry coupled with a team-based approach integrating behavioral health into routine maternal or primary care. Site observations and key informant interviews help build new stakeholder relationships and trust. Using data from a co-developed, custom patient registry and an implementation science approach, clinical outcome measures will be tracked and evaluated in “real-time” and shared with project stakeholders to monitor program progress, inform adjustments, and make plans for sustaining and scaling.
Sustainability and Scaling
The sustainability and scaling of this work and all our learning community’s work depends on funding. As government funding becomes less certain, we look to private foundations and individual funders both domestically and internationally who share concern about healthcare challenges that affect us all. Our learning community’s reach provides opportunities to engage with both those impacted and those who influence change. These connections help diversify funding opportunities and foster work that is collaborative, relevant, and impactful, which supports sustainability and the ability to scale.
Shared Learning
We continue to contribute to the evidence-base in peer-review publications, while considering new audiences and how to meet them where they are. How might our learning community enlist the support of private foundations and individual donors? How might we win the hearts and minds of the communities we serve and their legislators to embrace innovative, evidence-based solutions for chronic disease management and perinatal depression? How does our collaborative work translate into personal testimonies of positive impact for individuals and families and transformational change for communities?
Pull together to move forward
Perhaps the old saying “stronger together” is more prescient now than ever before as we face a new reality. At UPMC, we look to our learning community. We encourage colleagues to prioritize relationships and trust and seek to build, deepen, and strengthen connections within your learning communities. We suggest thinking creatively about who else might be part of your learning community and welcoming them into the fold for new perspectives, energy, and opportunity. We believe that the best, and perhaps only, path forward is together.
*These projects were funded through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute® (PCORI®) awards HSII_UPMC_MC and HSII_UPMC_CB-PS1. The views, statements, and opinions presented in this blogpost are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of PCORI®.
** The project described was supported by grant number UL853331 from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, Health Resources and Services Administration, DHHS.