LeaHD Center Organization

Administrative Core

Linda Resnik (PI), Janet Freburger (Co-I)

Margarite Whitten (Program Manager)

LeaHD Executive Committee

Linda Resnik (Chair), Janet Freburger, Theresa Shireman (Members)

Research Data Analytics Core

Janet Freburger (PI), Christine McDonough,

Rosa Baier, Mary Slavin (co-Investigators)

Research Education Core

Theresa Shireman (PI), Elizabeth Skidmore (Co-I) 

Health System Partners

AHCA/NCAL, Boston Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, InnovAge, Intermountain Healthcare, 

Johns Hopkins, Lifespan, Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, UPMC 

Administrative Core (AC)

The purpose of the Administrative Core (AC) is to catalyze and champion the mission, goals, and activities of LeaHD. The specific aims of the AC are to:

  1. Provide administrative and financial management, and coordinate interactions among leadership, co-investigators, scientists, mentors, health systems, and community partners.
  2. Develop and execute a comprehensive plan to recruit a diversity of scientists, solicit and coordinate review of applications, and submit required regulatory documents for research projects.
  3. Employ clear outcome and impact metrics to evaluate and document LeaHD activities.

Research Education Core (REC)

A major barrier to integrating healthcare research into practice is that researchers often lack firsthand experience and knowledge of how health systems operate in an increasingly complex and demanding environment. Conducting rigorous LHS research requires connecting knowledge, skills, and competencies with real-world implementation. Placing researchers within the teams and priorities of health systems encourages dialogue between researchers, clinicians, and health systems administrators, ideally increasing successful adaptation of the research to meet the needs of the system. The Research Education Core’s (REC) overall objective is to provide skills development and mentored training experiences for health system embedded scientists to integrate research into practice in the context of improving care for persons with disabilities and chronic conditions. To achieve this objective, we propose the following Specific Aims:

  1. Oversee embedded scientist selection and matching.
  2. Address scientists’ competency gaps with a rigorous curriculum in LHS research competencies.
  3. Oversee development and implementation of effective mentorship and training.

Research and Data Analysis Core (RDAC)

The overall objective of the Research and Data Analysis Core (RDAC) is to ensure that LeaHD LHS scientists (scientists), in collaboration with our LHS partners, are generating and disseminating high quality, relevant, and impactful evidence to improve health system operations, quality of care, and health outcomes for individuals and populations with disability and chronic conditions. RDAC expertise will augment that of academic and onsite mentors to assist our scientists as they navigate the complexities of conducting research/quality improvement projects in real world settings and balance rigorous methodologic and often time-intensive approaches with more pragmatic and efficient approaches. The RDAC proposes the following specific aims to support its LeaHD scientists and their teams, and to support the LeaHD Center as a whole:

  1. Provide services, tools, and resources to promote best practices for patient-centered outcomes (PCOR), comparative effectiveness (CER), and dissemination and implementation (D&I) research within learning health systems (LHSs).
  2. Provide guidance on the regulatory, data use and management, and data sharing issues associated with conducting partnered (e.g., academic & health system) research and quality improvement activities within LHSs.
  3. Assist in the dissemination and implementation of the scientific information and evidence created by the Center’s LHS scientist.