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Learning Health Systems: Concepts, Principles and Practice for Data-Driven Health

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Nursing Informatics

Part of the book series: Health Informatics ((HI))

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Abstract

This chapter gives an introduction to the underlying concept, the guiding principles, and the practice of learning health systems (LHSs). They are understood as socio-technical systems that can be implemented at a local, regional, national, or supranational level. LHSs are meant to improve the quality of care by realizing fast feedback cycles of data-driven practice. Knowledge from data is applied in daily practice, which again leads to more data for new knowledge. In order to establish sustainable LHSs, a culture with core values of cooperation and an appropriate governance structure has to be put into place. The IT infrastructure is composed of operational and analytical information systems ensuring interoperability, data privacy, and rigorous analytical methods that function as the engine of the LHS. Through informatics methods, observational data from daily routines are consolidated and made ready through extraction, transformation, and loading processes into a data warehouse for further analysis. Single time points and longitudinal patient and process data can be used for making predictions and forecasts. Classical statistical methods, for example, descriptive statistics, cluster analysis, time series analyses, as well as artificial intelligence approaches, for example, neural networks, can be applied to yield results for decision support at the bedside or the point of care.

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Further Reading

  • Wager KA, Lee FW, Glaser JP. Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management. Wiley; 2017.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University AS Osnabrück, Osnabrueck, Germany

    Jens Rauch

  2. University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Niedersachsen, Germany

    Ursula H. Hübner

Authors
  1. Jens Rauch
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  2. Ursula H. Hübner
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Correspondence to Ursula H. Hübner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Niedersachsen, Germany

    Ursula H. Hübner

  2. The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), Arlington, TX, USA

    Gabriela Mustata Wilson

  3. Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Chicago, IL, USA

    Toria Shaw Morawski

  4. The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), Arlington, TX, USA

    Marion J. Ball

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Rauch, J., Hübner, U.H. (2022). Learning Health Systems: Concepts, Principles and Practice for Data-Driven Health. In: Hübner, U.H., Mustata Wilson, G., Morawski, T.S., Ball, M.J. (eds) Nursing Informatics . Health Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91237-6_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91237-6_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-91237-6

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