The value of learning health systems in disease control and aging

We are living in an unprecedented revolutionary age of science and technology. Real‐time databases of disease‐specific registries are expected to dramatically and efficiently accelerate clinical research studies. The use of real‐world data to augment data from randomized clinical trials is gaining traction and support globally. The article entitled “The Global Academic Research Organization Network: Data Sharing to Cure Diseases and Enable Learning Health Systems” in this issue describes the activities of the Global ARO Network, including a workshop with participants from Asia, Europe, and the United States. This network represents the global expansion of the ARO Council and global disease‐specific consortia that collaborate on disease‐specific registries. Such networks enable research on a global scale to test drugs and medical devices from academia, ushering in an age where we can collaborate on research and obtain approval for new therapies simultaneously around the world. The formation of global networks for patients with rare diseases is an essential step toward overcoming such diseases, and we now have a more specific picture of the expanded role that these networks play in realizing global learning health systems.

Not only can learning health systems be beneficial in identifying the best treatments for individuals with specific diseases, but there is a role for functioning learning health systems to be more broadly applied to identifying ways to prevent diseases by leveraging and learning from the data from healthy individuals. In developed countries, aging populations pose an increasing social burden and a threat to the vitality of the society, particularly when many of the elderly are inflicted with chronic or debilitating diseases. The slogan, “society in which people in their 100s can remain active,” presages a society where no one is bedridden.* This idea may seem like an impossible dream, like eternal youth and immortality. However, there is an important role of learning health systems in resolving the age‐associated dilemma of extending life, along with quality of life, and controlling diseases that prevent most elderly individuals from being independent and active centenarians.

The full article can be downloaded below.