Infrastructure Research

Accelerating Knowledge to Practice

We collect vast amounts of health care data, so how do we put it to better, more efficient use?  DLHS' infrastructure research focuses on how human society—using technology, information, and policy as tools—require sustainable infrastructures that continuously improve health. Our multidisciplinary faculty and research staff specialize in behavioral and social science disciplines, including, but not restricted to: education, psychology, social work, sociology, anthropology, informatics, and linguistics. Our collective goal is to build and study learning health systems, with extensive experience starting numerous learning health system initiatives at local and national levels.

People + technology + policy = infrastructure

Learning health systems need infrastructure to thrive. Infrastructure can help us:

  • Discover new knowledge.
  • Discover the best way to implement knowledge.
  • Make this process routine.

See examples of how DLHS is making learning health systems work. 

We aim to improve health through these interdisciplinary research areas:

  • Data, computation and analytics
  • Knowledge systems
  • Implementation and practice
  • Infrastructure and systems design
  • Policy, culture and ethics

We investigate these areas at multiple levels of scale (global, national, regional, community, organizational, individual). Our team of learning health scientists come together to make learning cycles work to enable continuous improvement through cycles of discovery and change. 

We coordinate a pan-university Learning Health System initiative, the LHS Collaboratory, which aims to advance research and development of learning health systems at the University of Michigan. Our faculty also participate on coordination teams for numerous regional and national learning health system events.