"LHS Month” is a five-week collaborative series between the UAB Health System, the UAB School of Medicine’s Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE), and Clinical & Population Health Sciences Program. The series includes five presentations, one per week, from faculty leading LHS initiatives across the United States and at UAB, as well as plans for the development of more integrated collaborative opportunities to implement LHS principles throughout the UAB Health System.
The first presentation will be the Kilgore Lecture, in honor of the late UAB School of Public Health Healthcare Organization and Policy Chair and COERE Co-Director, Dr. Meredith Kilgore. This year’s lecturer is Charles P. Friedman, PhD, Josiah Macy Jr. Professor of Medical Education, Chair of the Department of Learning Health Sciences and Professor of Information and Public Health at the University of Michigan. Friedman’s work is committed to building a Learning Health System at both the University and state-wide. He first explored the concept of Learning Health Systems, or health systems that can continuously study and improve themselves, in 2010, through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)’s Institute of Medicine. Under Friedman’s leadership, the ONC’s Department of Medical Education transformed into the Department of Learning Health Sciences, a “first in the nation” medical school academic department dedicated to the sciences of learning at all levels.
Dr. Meredith Kilgore was an uncommon man of wide-ranging interests and gifts, and he was not someone to be effortlessly forgotten. From mentoring aspiring researchers, to speaking Japanese, providing insights into health economics, and deftly playing jazz piano, Kilgore could be counted on for sharing intriguing life experiences and perspectives. Foremost professionally, he was adept at creating cross-campus and external collaborations with the goal of helping others live healthy, productive lives.
The Dr. Meredith Kilgore Endowed Lectureship brings a distinguished scholar to the university each year to lecture on outcome measurements, Kilgore’s passion, and an essential component of rigorous scientific inquiry. As the UAB Health System intentionally works to use the Learning Health System model to improve its quality of care delivered to patients, Friedman’s lecture will support that effort by providing guidance to both the UAB Health System and the University. He will present about how UAB can better cultivate system-wide intentionality around using discovery and new knowledge to inform the delivery of high-quality patient care, honoring Kilgore’s legacy.
“We are excited that we are able to continue to honor Dr. Kilgore with Dr. Friedman’s lecture," said Allyson Hall, COERE Co-Director. “We believe Meredith would have been pleased with the focus on learning health systems and improving health care quality at UAB Health Systems.”
The Kilgore Lecture will be on Tuesday, March 2, from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. CST. UAB’s Learning Health System Month will continue every Tuesday at noon ending Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Visit the COERE website to register.