Select LHS Program projects

Research-care delivery partnerships in action

KPWHRI researchers team up with partners from care delivery to present their collaborative work at an LHS Program All Hands event (pre-COVID).

The LHS Program connects people with diverse expertise from across Kaiser Permanente Washington and KPWHRI, providing a unique opportunity to work together and learn from each other—and from our members and their experiences. Some LHS Program projects are short-term collaborations that tap into our researchers' scientific capabilities to quickly answer our care delivery partners' emerging questions about quality, affordability, and member experience. Others are long-term partnerships that involve designing, implementing, and/or evaluating our care delivery system's priority efforts. Below is a selection of ongoing and completed projects.

ongoing projects

Developing, testing, and spreading a whole-person approach to managing chronic pain

The LHS Program is partnering with patients, care teams, and clinical leaders at Kaiser Permanente Washington to design a patient-centered Integrated Pain Management (IPM) program. The goal is to improve quality of life, functioning, and overall health and well-being for people with chronic pain by providing safe alternatives to opioids and increasing the use of evidence-based, non-pharmacologic treatments. Learn more.

Using advanced analytics to inform and improve care

Predictive analytics can improve clinical and operational decision making by identifying meaningful patterns in complex electronic health record (EHR) and claims data. The LHS Program brings scientists together with care delivery partners to design and implement predictive models to inform proactive outreach and improve care, with a special focus on members at high risk of health complications. Learn more.

Co-designing an approach to universal social health screening to help members with unmet social needs

The LHS Program is partnering with delivery system leaders, care teams, and members to co-design an approach to conducting universal social health screening to help KP Washington systematically identify social risk, provide resources to address unmet social needs, and deliver whole-person care to our members. Learn more.

Integrating high-quality mental health care into primary care for adolescents

Working with leaders and clinicians from Pediatrics, Family Practice, and Mental Health and Wellness, the LHS Program is developing and pilot testing an integrated approach to improving child and adolescent mental health care across Kaiser Permanente Washington. The 13-17 Integrated Mental Health Pilot involves teen members, parents of teen members, and care teams at 3 primary care clinics who are working with us to design workflows for integrating mental health needs into primary care for members age 13 to 17. Learn more.
 

completed projects

Supporting innovative design in new clinics with a member-centered, data-driven approach

Improving access and service by optimizing the Community Resource Specialist (CRS) role

Kaiser Permanente Washington's new CRS role has been making a difference for our members since the original pilot study that launched the role several years ago. Through the LHS Program, implementation scientists at KPWHRI worked with behavioral health experts at Kaiser Permanente Washington to define the core components of the CRS role, support its implementation through practice facilitation and technical assistance, document best practices and scale-up strategies, and evaluate the impact of the CRS service on patient and care team outcomes. Learn more.

Tracking and improving treatment for opioid use disorder

An interdisciplinary team brought together by the LHS Program developed 2 new tools to help ensure high-quality treatment for opioid use disorder in primary care: an EHR dashboard and report to help clinicians improve care for individual patients with opioid use disorder, and an administrative metrics dashboard to help clinical leaders ensure treatment quality across our system. Learn more.

Rapid-cycle learning to help give members a 'bridge to care'

Throughout 2019, the LHS Program partnered with Kaiser Permanente Washington's Bridging Care and Coverage (BCC) team to provide data and implementation support to help make the new BCC service even better as they spread it across our system. Learn more.

Contact us

For more information about Kaiser Permanente Washington's Learning Health System Program, please email us at KPWALHS@kp.org.