What is a learning collaborative?

A learning collaborative is a method for supporting practice change in which teams of peers and recognized experts come together to learn from each other and to apply quality improvement methods in a focused topic area. Learning collaboratives are a key approach that our team uses to optimize health care and accelerate the adoption of best practices.

Learning collaboratives generally include these features:

• Clinical teams from across multiple organizations working together for 12-18 months
• Expert-led learning sessions with ample time for peer-to-peer sharing
• Tests of change between learning sessions
• Monthly reporting and interim calls

Learning collaboratives help promote patient-centered, team-based care

From our experience, the most successful learning collaboratives: 

• Are planned with input from patients, care teams, and topic experts
• Employ evidence-based quality improvement and implementation science methods 
• Foster peer learning by providing ample opportunities for participants to connect and problem solve together
• Use participant feedback to make real-time improvements and for summative evaluation 

Our Learning Collaborative Toolkit is a product of decades of experience 

Learning collaboratives can transform health care. That’s why we collated our experience into a toolkit which provides easy access to the knowledge and tools necessary to design, execute, and evaluate a high-quality learning collaborative.

Hosting a Learning Collaborative: A Toolkit
This toolkit is meant to serve as a guide to developing and running a learning collaborative. It is a collection of suggestions, tools, and tips based on our many years of experience with learning collaboratives.

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Related resources

Learn more about learning collaboratives and their history in health care on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) website: The Breakthrough Series: IHI’s Collaborative Model for Achieving Breakthrough Improvement.

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