DURHAM, N.C. – Duke University Health System has been selected by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), an independent, nonprofit research organization, to participate in a new effort to close the gap between high-quality medical research and implementation of that evidence to improve patient outcomes.

While enormous effort and research dollars are committed to improving patient care, the actual implementation of new knowledge into real-world care environments can take far too long – and sometimes doesn’t happen at all. PCORI’s project, called the Health Systems Implementation Initiative, is designed to help health systems bridge this gap, speeding up the pipeline of knowledge to practice and improving patient care and outcomes.

The PCORI project will support ongoing efforts at Duke centered on work begun through the Duke Quality System. Led by Richard P. Shannon, M.D, Duke Health senior vice president and chief quality officer, the Duke Quality System aims to provide “perfect patient care,” a concept that not only includes providing timely, evidence-based patient care, but also ensuring that the care is done right the first time, without defects, waste, or inequity.

Shannon, who also serves as chief medical officer for Duke Health, most recently has led the development of the Duke Collaborative to Advance Health Equity (CACHE), a community-driven program that extends the quality system model by harnessing data science to find and eliminate racial disparities in health care.

CACHE uses data from across the entire health system to identify clinical outcomes that significantly impact patient health and wellbeing, evaluate those outcomes for the presence of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities, and work with patients to understand the underlying factors that drive them. Once those steps are completed, CACHE enables interventions to address the root causes of disparities both inside and beyond the health care system.

Duke Health, together with CACHE and the Duke Quality System platform, will leverage support from the PCORI project to design and implement improvements in care delivery and contribute to a learning network of health systems by sharing experience and knowledge gained over the course of the effort.