SPIRIT K12

Welcome from the SPIRIT K12 Program Directors

As Co-Directors of the new Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)-funded Stakeholder-Partnered Implementation Research and Innovation Translation (SPIRIT) K12 Program, we welcome you to our program web site. Now early in our inaugural year of program operations, we shall be expanding our menu of web site utilities and tools throughout 2019, and beyond, to serve the needs of all program stakeholders and to share resources with other K12 programs nationwide within the AHRQ-PCORI Learning Health Systems Consortium as well as with the broader community of researchers and the public at large who have an interest in scientific discoveries and innovations that improve the accessibility, safety, and quality of health care.

The SPIRIT K12 Program constitutes a unique new partnership among UCLA, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, and Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, bringing into alignment four distinctive health care systems that will collaboratively support mentored postdoctoral research career development of the next generation of interdisciplinary team members, leaders, and innovators in patient-centered outcomes research conducted within learning health systems. In our collective effort to bridge the gap between research and practice for improved patient outcomes and health care system performance, SPIRIT encompasses an additional special focus on historically underserved minority and low-income populations, who evidence wide disparities in care access and outcomes. In overall mission, SPIRIT is designed to advance knowledge of care design, delivery, and implementation strategies for rapid and sustainable uptake of scientifically proven interventions across diverse real-world health care settings and populations.

As of December 2018, we are in the process of impaneling our main program governance body, the SPIRIT Executive Steering Committee (ESC), and of soliciting applications for our Cohort I of K12 LHS scholars, to be composed of FOUR appointees.

Our inaugural ESC membership, as well as our start-up pool of research and health care system executive mentors, can be accessed here.

To all prospective applicants

In addition to mentored, hands-on research projects, to be conducted within our four partnering health care systems, the SPIRIT K12 program will offer a state-of-the-art curricular experience to our scholars, evolving annually and encompassing both required and elective elements. The curriculum development effort will be guided in part by competencies in Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) and Learning Health Systems (LHS) research, and will be organized within this general framework.

Please visit the Applications page for full details on the formal application package for Cohort I.