Health care systems worldwide are challenged by changing patterns of communicable and non-communicable diseases, population aging, increasing technological progress and growing resource constraints.

To ensure fitness-for-pur­pose, effectiveness and efficiency of health systems, decision-making on all levels of the system needs to be supported by the best available evidence. The utilized evidence should relate to high-quality research that addresses health system needs, including the evaluation of benefits and costs of different courses of action.

In learning health systems (LHS), the research agenda is collaboratively developed to be respon­sive to current health system needs and to facilitate the flow of information at levels of policy, research and practice. By doing so, the LHS are promoting evidence-based policy making and create continuous learning processes that match health system needs. This in turn creates a culture of shared responsibility, creating a learning environment that links all actors in the health system – patients, health care providers, insurers, research­ers and health policy makers – in the common cause to strengthen the health system, improve population health, and to ultimately achieve better value for the money in healthcare.

The Swiss Learning Health System's (SLHS) goal is to foster the dialogue between different stakeholders that are relevant in the health system and thus to develop and continuously integrate evidence-based solutions to current and future challenges in the health care system. In order to achieve the goal of bridging research, policy and practice, the SLHS educates scholars in the specific skills needed in a learning health system and it builds a management tool for standardized health information.