The role of HPSR pracademics in enabling learning health systems: Reflections from the trenches

The shifting global and national landscapes make providing healthcare and addressing upstream determinants of health increasingly difficult. Within this complex environment, the need for health systems to learn and adapt – to become learning health systems (LHS) – has become even more pronounced. Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) pracademics can play an important role in enabling LHS. They can span boundaries, as embedded researchers and strategist implementers, to help bridge both the research-policy and policy-implementation gaps, respectively. However, traversing multiple worlds comes with a unique set of challenges that must be overcome for this way of working to be supported and encouraged, including institutional-level changes. Individuals, relationships between them and the networks that support them are a lifeline to HPSR pracademics. This lifeline is also key to the very institutional-level changes needed to encourage HPSR pracademia as an approach to working and being in health systems and, ultimately, to enable LHS.