Health systems is a term with numerous definitions. Some are broad and conceptual, referring to “all the activities whose primary purpose is to promote, restore or maintain health”. Other definitions are more specific, using contractual or structural elements to refer to organizations delivering health care services. Yet other definitions equate health systems with the work of delivering care.
Our mission is to support and collaborate with people and groups to design, evaluate, implement, and disseminate innovations in systems of care. This perspective of translational scholarship and application aligns with the Department's academic and clinical missions. It also acknowledges health systems work that can be done in pursuit of complementary yet distinct goals: (1) to produce generalizable insight and (2) to produce more immediately actionable insight and change.
The firsts aligns with domains of T3 & T4 translational research.
The second represents opportunities for delivery system innovation at the intersection of scholarship and health care operations -- one in which science is used to address delivery system issues in order to integrate local experience and external evidence, and put knowledge into practice. 
We seek to foster both goals, producing generalizable insight and actionable change through the Collective and Programs in selected health systems areas.