There has been increased focus on “Learning Health Systems” that drive development of new knowledge and innovations for improvement in health care. Such systems can be applied to the general practice setting to optimise health care delivery and patient experience. 

In this presentation, I will describe key elements of a Learning Health System developed in the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne. 

1.     Data for Decisions: 130 community general practices share data from their electronic medical records for the purposes of research, teaching and policy development

2.     Future Health Today: Quality improvement and clinical decision support at the point of care to optimise chronic disease diagnosis and management

3.     Torch Recruit: Clinical trial recruitment software to identify patients that may be eligible to participate in clinical trials

These elements are dependant on the development and support of practice based research networks. The vision for a national network in Australia which will underpin national primary care trials, data and surveillance infrastructure will be described.