The Potential for Learning Health Policy Systems

Summary:

I chose to read this article about Health Policy Systems to better understand how health policies
shape public health (including past policy changes), if there is a need to improve on said policies, and
what is needed to implement effective policies. I also chose to read this article to gain more knowledge on
systemic and multi-levels that go into creating policies and how I could, in the future, be equipped to
managing and possibly developing/improving on any past policies that are no longer ethical to the
healthcare fields, including that of public health. I believe that all healthcare professional should obtain
proper knowledge on what policies have been implemented, why they were implemented and how they
were developed and how it can affect your field/organization. This article from Frontiers Public Health
helps with fulfilling sub-competency #2, which focuses on implanting policies, programs and other
services.

What I Learned:

After reading this article, I learned that there is a movement to taking a systematic approach to
policy implementation. One example they brought up was that of COVID-19. Many social systems, such
as health, employment, education, etc. are interconnected. So when schools and childcare were closed due
to lockdown, many nursing and other medical service employee shortages due to lack of childcare. Within
the last few years, there has been a discourse with how policies were run. Each state in the US has
policies to advance health equity, but each state is different in their implementation. Due to these different
designs and implementations, there are ongoing evaluations of said policies. This article brings up the
idea that instead of focusing on just evidence based policies; there should be a systematic examination on
how the policies are implemented. This technique/study is called Implementation Science, where it looks
into methods that can promote the uptake of research finding and placed into routine practice.

Through developing a system called the Learning Health Policy System (LHPS), it enables the
possibility for continuous evaluation of the implementation of new policies and even evaluation of
policies that have already been adopted but could need improvements. This system looks into how health
systems respond to the new policies or old policy changes and how well they adapt. It also sees how the
policies shape the health systems within the social and structural determinants of health. The goal for this
system is to generate evidence on policy implementation on the sustainability of the policies goals and
outcomes and how that can not only affect the healthcare field, but can also affect their patients and the
populations/communities health. This could be a huge benefit to have this system in times of great
distress, such as the pandemic and also to a response to a growing issue of social and structural
inequalities in the US.

Overall, I’ve learned quite a bit about the ideas on how to improve policies and the
implementation of them. This article brings up many examples of the health systems short fallings when it
comes to policies and how this solution of Implementation Science could possibly solve many of issues
that are still in place within various fields.