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Evidence Mobilization
Action Collaborative

Supporting the conditions necessary for transforming real world experiences into valuable data that are routinely used to improve population and patient-level health

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About the Evidence Mobilization Action Collaborative

As one of four action collaboratives under the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Consortium, the Evidence Mobilization Action Collaborative (EMAC) promotes the systematic capture of real-world health and medical experiences to improve the evidence that is used for decision-making at every level of health and health care. The EMAC aims to identify and advance best practices for generating, collecting, analyzing, and applying real-world data. 

The health system generates myriad data points in the process of monitoring, evaluating, and intervening to improve patient health. Yet, much of these data are not captured or used in ways that significantly improve the health care system or patient experiences. The EMAC aims to ensure that valuable evidence is routinely studied, strategically applied, and widely disseminated to promote a health system that can learn and improve, ultimately providing people with the health they deserve at costs they can afford.  

Co-Chairs

Medtronic

Laura Mauri, MD, MSc, is the Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer at Medtronic. Laura received her A.B. from Harvard College and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, both magna cum laude, and her M.Sc. (Clinical Epidemiology) from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed residency in internal medicine and fellowships in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Laura serves on the Board of directors of (MDIC) and is a member of the NIH Advisory Committee. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of University Cardiologists, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a Fellow of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology, and member of the Society of Cardiac Angiography and Intervention. She has authored approximately 200 original articles, served as a Senior Editor for the journal Circulation, and was awarded the Joseph A. Vita Award for Clinical Research by the American Heart Association in 2017.

Harvard Medical School

Richard Platt, MD, MSc is Professor and Chair of the Harvard Medical School Department of Population Medicine at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. He is principal investigator of the FDA’s Sentinel System that studies of the safety and effectiveness of marketed medical products. Dr. Platt is also co-principal investigator of the coordinating center of PCORI’s Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, leads the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory’s Distributed Research Network, and is co-principal of a CDC Prevention Epicenter. He is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Advisory Panel on Research. He is a former chair of the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, and co-chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Center for Infectious Diseases.

Highlander Health

Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., is cofounder of Highlander Health, an organization focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. As an oncologist, serial entrepreneur, and standard setter, Dr. Abernethy is a champion for speeding the pace at which safe and effective treatments reach patients, and for progressive and responsible use of our healthcare system’s data.

Dr. Abernethy is the former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While there, Dr. Abernethy led initiatives in advancing clinical evidence generation and personalized healthcare and also served as the agency’s acting chief information officer.

More recently, Dr. Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business, leading the company’s development and delivery of solutions that connect clinical research and care. Earlier roles include that of Flatiron Health’s first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, as well as: professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine; director of the Center for Learning Health Care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute; and, director of the Duke Cancer Care Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. An avid learner and teacher, and a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, Dr. Abernethy has authored over 500 publications.

Impact

Health system effectiveness,
efficiency, equity and continuous improvement begins with availability of the best evidence for the circumstance.

 In 2006, the NAM Leadership Consortium was established as a public-private initiative to address the fact that evidence required was too often unavailable and that evidence available was too often unapplied. The Evidence Mobilization Action Collaborative has operated since 2010 with a specific focus on facilitating data capture, sharing, and analysis to transform the speed and reliability of evidence development and use for patients, clinicians, and the common good. These projects engage individuals from stakeholder organizations—such as academic representatives, care systems, payers, people served, product manufacturers, professional societies, population health, and standards and credentialing—that are interested in working cooperatively with other organizations to resolve the central common barriers to progress and committed to the basic principles of a continuously learning health system.  

  • AARP
  • AcademyHealth
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  • AstraZeneca
  • Brookings Institute
  • California Health Care Foundation
  • Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • Cleveland Clinic
  • DoD
  • Duke University
  • Emory University
  • Families USA
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • Harvard University
  • Department of Health & Human Services
  • Health Resources & Services Administration
  • Indiana University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Joint Commission
  • Kaiser Permanente
  • Medtronic
  • Merck
  • Missouri Foundation for Health
  • NCQA
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Ohio State University
  • Patient Advocate Foundation
  • PCORI
  • Pfizer
  • RAND Corporation
  • Research America!
  • Stanford University
  • TriNetX
  • United Health Group
  • University of Colorado/Denver Health
  • University of Florida
  • University of Michigan
  • University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • Urban Institute
  • UPMC Health Plan
  • Vanderbilt University Medical Center
  • Verily
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
  • Washington University at St. Louis
  • Weill-Cornell

Projects completed, under way, or under consideration by EMAC include:

  • Prioritizing health data as a national concern. Developing a health data utility roadmap, including steps for building on health data infrastructure frameworks and validations structures, to guide progress toward improved health data governance practices and policies will be essential for driving positive change and ensuring that all individuals benefit from the insights derived from their health information. 
  • Rethinking informed consent. Increasing the collection and use of data to improve health and health systems addressing important issues of transparency, data collection, research participation, data quality, and ownership. 

In-person attendance at meetings is by invitation only due to room capacity limitations.

Recent Public Meetings:

Publications

View All Publications
Mar 6, 2017Discussion Paper
Clinician Engagement for Continuous Learning
Introduction Participants and other stakeholders in today’s U.S. health care system are striving for the generation of new knowledge to guide care while at the same time they are also managing growing clinical and organizational complexity, directing considerable attention to curbing health care costs, and reducing inefficiencies. An important early milestone toward achieving these goals was the establishment of the […]
Health Policy and RegulationHealth Worker Well-BeingNursingPayment ReformQuality and SafetyWorkforce and Interprofessionalism
Clinician Engagement for Continuous Learning
Dec 30, 2015Discussion Paper
Revisiting the Common Rule and Continuous Improvement in Health Care: A Learning Health System Perspective
Introduction In 2011, participants in the National Academy of Medicine’s (NAM, then the Institute of Medicine) Clinical Effectiveness Research Innovation Collaborative authored a discussion paper on the Common Rule from the perspective of continuous improvement and the learning health system. The paper highlighted the basic tenets of the NAM’s vision of a continuous learning health care system—in which “science, informatics, […]
Coverage and AccessHealth Policy and RegulationPatient and Consumer Issues
Revisiting the Common Rule and Continuous Improvement in Health Care: A Learning Health System Perspective
Apr 15, 2013Discussion Paper
Making the Case for Continuous Learning from Routinely Collected Data
  Background Most people who receive health care in the United States recognize that the system is complicated and fragmented. What they are less likely to know is that opportunities to learn from the care provided in hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices are most often lost. As health care records move to electronic systems, the data routinely collected as part […]
Health LiteracyHealth Policy and RegulationPatient and Consumer IssuesQuality and Safety
Making the Case for Continuous Learning from Routinely Collected Data

Contact Information

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