Stacy Farr, PhD, MPH

Stacy Farr, PhD, MPH

Director of CV Outcomes Research
Saint Luke’s Health System

Co-Director, Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality (HI-IQ) and Kansas City Quality & Value Innovation Consortium (KC QVIC)

Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biomedical & Health Informatics
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine

Stacy L. Farr, PhD, MPH, is a Research Assistant Professor in the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, Department of Biomedical & Health Informatics and Director of Outcomes Research at Saint Luke’s Health System. As a trained health services researcher in health policy and public health, she brings over ten years of experience managing research and policy projects and conducting mixed methods program evaluations on a variety of health-related topics. Dr. Farr completed her BS from Nebraska Wesleyan University; MPH from the University of Kansas School of Medicine; and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Health Services Research & Policy.

Dr. Farr has presented and published in a variety of national venues, including the peer-reviewed journals Medical Care and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. She also participates on various local and national advisory boards focused on bringing an evidence-based perspective in health services research, health policy, and public health.

Creating Learning Health Communities: Data Challenges & Opportunities

As healthcare increasingly shifts from volume- to value-based reimbursement, the need for hospitals to more rapidly uptake evidence into practice is critical. The learning healthcare system approach uses data and clinical systems redesign to conduct continuous quality improvement (QI), to optimize care and outcomes. While many hospitals and healthcare systems identify as learning healthcare systems, this approach remains siloed in terms of optimizing population health outcomes. Unfortunately, lessons learned from one system are often not easily disseminated to others. Additionally, this approach often leaves other important stakeholders: payers, purchasers, community-based organizations, researchers, and others. What is critical, is moving from learning healthcare systems into learning healthcare communities. The Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality (HI-IQ) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City is striving to accomplish this goal. The Institute is leveraging expertise from multiple stakeholders to rapidly implement evidence into healthcare and evaluate the impact on outcomes. In this ambitious goal, data has been a challenge. These data come from competitive healthcare systems, multiple electronic health record (EHR) vendors, and across care settings. This session will engage the audience in a discussion of the goals of HI-IQ, data sources, regulatory challenges, and opportunities for future collaboration.