In a new video conversation, two of the roundtable's key voices, Dr. James A. Rice, Chairman of the INDRC Executive Board, and Dr. Leah Hanson, Senior Director of Neuroscience Research at HealthPartners Institute, pick that question back up, this time going deeper into what "implementation" actually looks like on the ground.
⬇ You can watch their full conversation below ⬇
It's Not a Shortage of Ideas
Reflecting on the spring gathering, Dr. Rice noted that the room brought together medical, policy, and finance perspectives, and one insight stood out above the rest: a good idea is rarely enough on its own. Regulatory hurdles, financial incentives, and everyday clinical workflow can all stand between a validated innovation and a patient who actually benefits from it.
Dr. Hanson agreed without hesitation. "It's not a lack of ideas," she said. "It's a lack of figuring out how to get those ideas operationalized into care." She pointed to familiar, practical barriers, such as a workflow change that doesn't fit an outpatient clinic's day-to-day reality, or a reimbursement model that simply doesn't align with the intervention being proposed.
Her recommendation is one that shows up throughout HealthPartners' approach: bring every stakeholder to the table from the very beginning, including not only clinicians and scientists but financial analysts and operational leaders, so that the people who will ultimately have to make an intervention work in practice help shape it from the ground floor.
A Different Kind of Research Environment
Dr. Rice pointed out an important contrast between the two continents' strengths. Europe's research consortium led by the INDRC - CLARA center is benefiting from strong European Union support for basic science, often working at the level of genomics and neuronal biology. In the U.S., he suggested, the opportunity looks different: less about basic science alone, and more about integrated systems of care that treat the whole person.
That's exactly the territory HealthPartners occupies. As Dr. Hanson explained, HealthPartners is an integrated delivery system: it runs hospitals and clinics, provides health coverage, and houses its own research institute, all under one roof. That combination creates what she called a "learning health system," a real-world environment where research, coverage, and care delivery inform each other continuously.
The Learning Health System, in Practice
Asked how that translates into an actual method, Dr. Hanson laid out a straightforward, iterative cycle:
- Co-design: engage clinical, financial, and operational partners before implementation begins.
- Implement: put the intervention into practice in a real clinical setting.
- Rapid evaluation: check quickly on workflow, billing and reimbursement, and how both patients and clinicians are experiencing the change.
- Regroup and refine: bring the team back together to discuss what worked and what didn't, adjust the intervention, and, where needed, redefine roles.
- Repeat: implement again, evaluate again, optimize again.
It's a model built for continuous improvement rather than a single, one-time rollout, and it's precisely the kind of practical, interdisciplinary process the Minneapolis Roundtable identified as missing from so many well-validated innovations.
Closing the Loop Between Prague and Minneapolis
Looking back at the conversation, Dr. Rice described this iterative approach (bringing an interdisciplinary team together, making a change, evaluating it, and making it better) as "the real hope of what is happening at CLARA and INDRC." It's a natural continuation of the Minneapolis Roundtable's central theme: moving brain health innovation from validation to deployment isn't a single leap, but an ongoing partnership between researchers, clinicians, and the systems that ultimately deliver care.
For more details related to the April 16, 2026 Minneapolis Meeting click HERE.
INDRC and CLARA will continue to share updates on this collaboration as the partnership with HealthPartners and the Brain Watch Coalition develops.
James A. Rice, Ph.D.,LFACHE is Chairman of the Executive Board of INDRC in Prague, Chairman of the Akadimi Foundation USA, and faculty at the Strathmore School of Business in Nairobi. He has worked on health system strengthening through leadership and governance initiatives in more than 35 countries.
Leah R. Hanson, Ph.D. is Senior Director of Neuroscience Research and Senior Investigator at HealthPartners Institute. Her work focuses on Learning Health System-embedded pragmatic clinical trials, dementia care models, caregiver support interventions, and non-pharmacologic therapies for neurologic disorders.
Photo & video credit: INDRC
