The National Cancer Institute’s Consortium for Cancer Implementation Science (CCSI) has selected Ramzi Salloum, Ph.D., to chair its Learning Healthcare Systems as Natural Laboratories action group. The group focuses on facilitating implementation research that advances the study and understanding of learning healthcare systems as natural laboratories for improving healthcare quality, equity and patient outcomes.
“I am excited about working with this group and am looking forward to sharing our collective expertise in learning health systems,” he said. Salloum is an associate professor in the College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics (HOBI) and director of the Learning Health System Initiative at the UF-FSU Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). He is also a member of the UF Health Cancer Center (UFHCC) and the UF Institute for Child Health Policy.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines learning healthcare systems as “health systems in which internal data and experience are systematically integrated with external evidence, and that knowledge is put into practice. As a result, patients get higher quality, safer, more efficient care, and health care delivery organizations become better places to work.”
The UF-FSU CTSI Learning Health System Program directed by Salloum pursues the development and piloting of implementation strategies at UF Health that can ultimately be adapted and scaled for use in other healthcare settings. The program collaborates with the UF-FSU CTSI’s statewide research partners, including the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network, the UF Health Precision Medicine Program, and other initiatives.
Each year, the NCI’s Consortium for Cancer Implementation Science action groups hold an annual meeting to start or continue planning related to the development of publicly available tools and resources to move implementation science in cancer forward in the coming year. The Learning Healthcare Systems as Natural Laboratories action group aims to promote and guide implementation science activities that successfully leverage the “natural laboratory” features of learning healthcare systems. The group also works to facilitate implementation research that advances the study and understanding of learning healthcare systems to improve healthcare quality, equity, and outcomes.
Salloum is well-versed in implementation science methods and frameworks and has served as faculty for the National Cancer Institute’s Training Institute for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer. His research focuses on the implementation and dissemination of evidence-based practices, especially in cancer prevention and control. Recent projects include targeting tobacco prevention programs for youth in rural North Florida, who have some of the highest electronic vaping rates in the state, and developing and testing stop-smoking interventions aimed at parents who bring their children to pediatric clinics.
Elizabeth Shenkman, Ph.D., chair of the department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics, co-director of the UF-FSU CTSI and the associate director for community outreach and engagement for the UFHCC, said, “This appointment speaks to Dr. Salloum’s amazing leadership in both implementation science and cancer studies, and the great work he is doing with the CTSI Learning Health System Initiative.”
In 2022, Salloum served as co-chair of the CCIS Implementation Science Study Designs action group.