Assessing healthcare organisations' readiness to implement a learning health system: protocol for questionnaire validation using a Delphi method.

INTRODUCTION

In the health sciences, it can take up to 17 years for 14% of research findings to be adopted in clinical practice. Adopting a learning health system (LHS) approach may help accelerate the transition of medicoadministrative and clinical data to knowledge, knowledge to performance and performance to data. However, little is currently known about whether healthcare organisations are both willing and able to adopt such an innovation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to generate validity evidence in support of a measure assessing healthcare organisations' readiness to implement an LHS approach.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

A three-round Delphi method will be used to establish consensus on the relevance, clarity and comprehensiveness of the LHS readiness questionnaire's domains, subdomains and items. The questionnaire has been developed based on a review of the literature. Participants with expertise in LHS across Canada and internationally will be purposively recruited using a modified Dillman approach, with opportunities for additional snowball sampling. Descriptive statistics will be calculated from all closed-ended Delphi survey responses. A conventional content analysis will be conducted on all open-ended responses.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical approval has been obtained from the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (AO3-E23-24B). The findings of this study will be disseminated in peer-reviewed publications, academic conferences, knowledge mobilisation workshops and through policy briefs and position papers.