A Learning Health System to Generate and Accelerate Innovation: The HealthPartners Institute

Abstract

The HealthPartners Institute is a research and education division embedded within HealthPartners — a nonprofit, member-governed integrated health system. The Institute aims to generate and accelerate innovation for the HealthPartners health system, its patients and members, and the communities it serves. It has taken a formal, organized approach to building the necessary capabilities, infrastructures, relationships, and tools to do so. This article outlines an innovative approach by which the HealthPartners Institute created an environment conducive to accelerated system performance. Key components of building this organizational milieu include (1) integration, (2) strategic planning, (3) democratization of knowledge (especially internally generated knowledge), (4) funding, and (5) a capability to listen to diverse perspectives from both within the organization and the community at large. In recent years, based on a 2023 survey of the HealthPartners Senior Strategy team, nearly two thirds of 34 respondents (61%) have seen more connections between their work and the work of the Institute, and just over half (52%) report that the Institute has become more relevant to their work. Notably, care delivery is the area to which respondents (78%) find the Institute brings the most value, followed by our patients (74%), HealthPartners as a whole (70%), and our community (70%). In addition, a series of multiyear federally funded trials involving patients with uncontrolled hypertension collectively represent an example of clinical and financial impact. This collaborative effort involving system division partnerships through the Institute’s core research department and centers of excellence compared usual hypertension care with an intervention that combined home blood pressure telemonitoring and pharmacist-led telephone care and found that the intervention group not only had lowered blood pressure and reduced cardiovascular disease events, but that for every US$1.00 spent the program realized US$1.82 in averted cardiovascular disease event costs. Efforts such as these advance system performance through a closer connection between the Institute and the health system’s strategic multiyear goals, shared leadership among major research portfolios and the care delivery service lines, preprofessional clinical education aligned with workforce needs, systemwide implementation of clinical simulation, aligned and integrated financial operations, and compliance and integrity programs. Based on these experiences and results, the authors present several themes that may support acceleration of progress toward achieving a high-performing learning health system. Future development will include focus on the generation and quantification of value for internal and external stakeholders, strategic alignment of priorities to enhance value, and continued focus on workforce development.