Supporting
the Growth and Impact of Networked
Communities
Spark promotes and helps build impactful networks to improve outcomes in healthcare, education and social services.
Spark helps people and organizations work together to dramatically improve outcomes by strengthening three areas:
Ecosystem + Community: Working Together for Better Results
For more than fifteen years, a dozen learning improvement networks have shown it is possible to dramatically improve health and educational outcomes for patients, families, students, and teachers. Our team has been on the front lines of this work—leading, participating in, and drawing inspiration from these successes. We have seen the kinds of breakthrough results people, teams, and organizations can achieve when they work together to solve challenging problems.
Among their successes:
Protecting Children: They have spared tens of thousands of hospitalized children from experiencing serious harm.
Boosting Recovery: They have increased the rate of clinical remission for children and adolescents with Inflammatory Bowel Disease from 55% to over 80%.
Saving Lives: They have reduced the inter-stage mortality rate for children with complex congenital heart disease by 70%
We know there is so much more to do, and the possibilities are limitless.
What if it was normal for health professionals to work together to get the best results for people living with any medical condition?
What if schools and communities were set up so every student in every district could reach their full potential?
We started Spark in 2025 to make this way of working- as networked improvement communities- the new standard. Our goal is to help catalyze the field. We are excited to work with interested partners, and also encourage systems everywhere to help expand these effective, transformative, collaborative approaches to achieving the kind of breakthrough results that patients, students, and families deserve. Together we can learn how to do this better, faster, and at lower cost.
For more than fifteen years, a dozen learning improvement networks have shown it is possible to dramatically improve health and educational outcomes for patients, families, students, and teachers. Our team has been on the front lines of this work—leading, participating in, and drawing inspiration from these successes. We have seen the kinds of breakthrough results people, teams, and organizations can achieve when they work together to solve challenging problems.
WORKING TOGETHER FOR BETTER RESULTS:
Ecosystem + Community
Among their successes:
Protecting Children: They have spared tens of thousands of hospitalized children from experiencing serious harm.
Boosting Recovery: They have increased the rate of clinical remission for children and adolescents with Inflammatory Bowel Disease from 55% to over 80%.
Saving Lives: They have reduced the inter-stage mortality rate for children with complex congenital heart disease by 70%
We know there is so much more to do, and the possibilities are limitless.
What if it was normal for health professionals to work together to get the best results for people living with any medical condition?
What if schools and communities were set up so every student in every district could reach their full potential?
We started Spark in 2025 to make this way of working- as networked improvement communities- the new standard. Our goal is to help catalyze the field. We are excited to work with interested partners, and also encourage systems everywhere to help expand these effective, transformative, collaborative approaches to achieving the kind of breakthrough results that patients, students, and families deserve. Together we can learn how to do this better, faster, and at lower cost.
People: Capacity for Lasting Change
We are committed to helping emerging leaders grow the capacity to establish and guide a continuously expanding community of actor-oriented, improvement-focused networks; networks whose leaders drive change and become catalysts themselves.
We will share resources and help build connections between network leaders to accelerate learning and improvement across fields and disciplines
We will help grow a cadre of partners who can provide the essential support networks need to thrive- including leadership skills, governance approaches, and engagement strategies
We will help teach the skills required to collaborate, test ideas, use system improvement methods, make meaning from data, and accelerate change
We will promote “Co-production” as the preferred approach for growing networks. There is no substitute for having the active involvement, from the beginning, of those most impacted by the problems in our current systems and their sub-optimal results.
Platforms / Infrastructure: Building Systems that Work
All networks depend on what we call a “reef” – the infrastructure, registry/data platform, technology, and agreements that are foundational for organizing and operating a network. We envision establishing a “commons” where resources (including proven tools and methods) that have worked for established networks are shared and accessible to improvement-oriented network leaders everywhere.
There is tremendous opportunity to reduce the cost, the time and the friction involved in establishing these foundations for new networks, and for operating them over time. With rapid advances in technology, there is clearly a promising future- in the near term- where our data systems can be less costly and more functional. We look forward to partnering with others both inside the technology field and within the sectors in which we will be working to achieve the bright future state we all deserve.
Platforms / Infrastructure: Building Systems that Work
All networks depend on what we call a “reef” – the infrastructure, registry/data platform, technology, and agreements that are foundational for organizing and operating a network. We envision establishing a “commons” where resources (including proven tools and methods) that have worked for established networks are shared and accessible to improvement-oriented network leaders everywhere.
There is tremendous opportunity to reduce the cost, the time and the friction involved in establishing these foundations for new networks, and for operating them over time. With rapid advances in technology, there is clearly a promising future- in the near term- where our data systems can be less costly and more functional. We look forward to partnering with others both inside the technology field and within the sectors in which we will be working to achieve the bright future state we all deserve.
