Rapid Learning Healthcare System in Pediatric Surgery

Engaging patients and families to take an active role in their healthcare leads to improved outcomes. Providing physicians and families with near real-time data on outcomes in children with similar medical conditions can allow families to form realistic expectations and take an active role in their child's health. It also provides physicians with near real-time feedback on patient-reported outcome measures to guide both conversations and recommendations for therapy at the point-of-care. A rapid learning healthcare system (RLHS) is a system that merges clinical research and clinical care. It is designed to collect data during routine patient care and then utilize the data to rapidly generate evidence to improve patient care, provide information to patients and families, and track quality measures. The investigators created a RLHS that integrates pre-specified data elements and validated surveys within the clinical workflow in order to operationalize automated research data collection and integrate predictive analytics into the electronic health record (EHR). Patients, caregivers, and physicians can access data in order to make informed, shared decisions about care and align expectations about outcomes.