# Learning Health Systems Mentored Career Development Program

> **NIH AHRQ K12** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2020 · $791,139

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The University of Pennsylvania proposes a training program for junior faculty: Transforming the Generation
and Adoption of PCOR in Practice (T-GAPP). T-GAPP is designed to advance the nation's leadership capacity
in deploying patient-centered outcomes research within learning health systems (LHS). This program is
directed by Drs. Stephen Kimmel, MD, MSCE and David A. Asch, MD, MBA, supported by a team of core LHS
competency leaders and a diversity director.
The specific aim of the program is to recruit and train future leaders in patient centered outcomes research
(PCOR) methods and conduct PCOR research in a LHS. This aim is consistent with our own mission,
because we seek to deploy the academic expertise of our university, with its schools of Medicine (Perelman;
PSOM), Nursing, Business (Wharton), and others toward improvements in health and health care. Penn
Medicine is a 6 hospital health system, the largest in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Entirely owned
and operated by a university, it has distinguished itself by seeing its academic connection as a strategic and
synergistic advantage—bringing scholarship into the clinical enterprise and creating a laboratory for the
academic enterprise.
Within this environment, we have designed a two year training program blending didactic and experiential
learning, all under the direction of experienced mentoring teams. PSOM provides both long-standing, highly
successful formal research training programs and a leading center for health care innovation, composed of
physicians, nurses, designers, project managers, software engineers, and others who embed themselves
alongside patients, families, and clinicians, with the fundamental goal of improving health, health care, and
patient and family experience. The program includes: 1) required courses in LHS and PCOR methods in order
to provide all scholars with an in-depth understanding of research design and execution, 2) formal masters-
level training for scholars without this prior training, (3) a year-long LHS workshop designed to demonstrate the
application of core competencies in LHS research and implementation, 4) a learning practicum within Penn
Medicine's Center for Health Care Innovation, 5) formal training in leadership development, 6) stakeholder
engagement, 7) development and completion of a research project in PCOR/LHS under the direction of the
mentorship team that includes a research scientist, quantitative expert, and health system administrator, 8)
guided development of at least one grant proposal and 9) participation and presentations at national meetings.
Well-trained scientists in PCOR must have an understanding of organizational sensibilities and leaders of LHS
will fail without an understanding of evidence and how it is created and used. We believe leadership in this
area requires skills in research and in management, and we aim to support both.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10017207
- **Project number:** 5K12HS026372-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** DAVID A ASCH
- **Activity code:** K12 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $791,139
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-30 → 2023-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10017207

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10017207, Learning Health Systems Mentored Career Development Program (5K12HS026372-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10017207. Licensed CC0.

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