Research Education Core

Realizing Accelerated Progress, Investigation, Implementation, and Dissemination in Learning Health Systems (RAPID-LHS): Research Education Core With the broad objectives of producing learning health system (LHS)-embedded scientists and increasing diversity in the LHS workforce, the Realizing Accelerated Progress, Investigation, Implementation, and Dissemination in Learning Health Systems (RAPID-LHS) Center will support faculty scientists who will each complete up to 2 years of training. The Research Education Core will focus on drawing together scientists and mentors across disciplines and modeling the team science integral to LHS. We will provide forums that demonstrate the intellectual productivity and practical benefits of interdisciplinary research in advancing human health. We will endorse team approaches to filling gaps in knowledge and translating knowledge into application through didactic and experiential research training. We will provide a transdisciplinary curriculum that conveys the LHS competencies required for design, adaptation, implementation, evaluation, dissemination, and sustainment of interventions in diverse health care contexts. We will foster interdisciplinary and trans-institutional mentorship by experienced patient outcomes researchers, implementation scientists, health policy mentors, and methodologists to enable scientists to achieve integrated learning to achieve their individual development and career goals. Each RAPID-LHS scientist will have a team of health system operational and research leaders assembled in an interdisciplinary Scholarship Oversight Committee (SOC). Each LHS scientist will work with their SOC to develop an individual development plan that is tailored to their specific career goals, LHS research project, and methodological needs. Through the RAPID-LHS Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Meharry Medical College, and other key partner institutions will offer LHS scientists protected time for learning and career development. We will provide structured didactics and seminars. We will work with RAPID-LHS scientists, in conjunction with the Research and Data Analysis Core, to apply didactic knowledge through an embedded research project within their healthcare system. Collaborative projects will benefit from strong LHS expertise and have equity-focused methods, interwoven with patient- and population-level outcomes. Scientists will gain knowledge of the dynamic health care landscape by embedding their research at the intersection of health care delivery and research. We anticipate that this program will develop a diverse LHS scientist workforce equipped to improve population health by advancing methodological approaches and answering clinical questions of importance to patients and other stakeholders. Critical to this mission is the training of RAPID-LHS Center scientists who have the tools to redefine the relationship between research and practice as a continuous feedback loop, with evidence and learning flowing in both directions as in the learning health system.