Bipolar Disorder Learning Community
Powered by clinicians, researchers, families, and lived experience
Practical, Real-World Perspectives
The Prechter Program started with a simple but powerful question: What if everyone touched by bipolar disorder — patients, families, caregivers, clinicians, and researchers — worked together as true partners to transform care at Michigan Medicine?
Launched in 2022, the Bipolar Disorder Learning Community (BDLC) is a multi-stakeholder healthcare improvement collaborative within the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program. The BDLC is dedicated to improving health care experiences and health outcomes for people living with bipolar disorder.
The BDLC brings together Prechter Program researchers, clinicians, program managers, individuals with lived experience, and family members to develop and carry out health care improvement initiatives. The Prechter Program BDLC has adopted the Learning Health System model: prioritizing discovery research and implementation science to enhance clinical care and research for bipolar disorder. At its core, the BDLC amplifies community voices within the Michigan Medicine health care system and advances mental health equity through shared knowledge and collective action.
Current Projects
Having social support can contribute to living well with bipolar disorder. Yet, few support groups are customized to the needs of people living with bipolar disorder. The BDLC has designed a support group format to help individuals with lived experience give and receive support, find community, and learn from others. In fall 2025 and winter 2026, we are piloting this support group as a research study to learn how we may be able to expand this offering to reach more people. Findings from this pilot study will be shared - stay tuned!
Living with bipolar disorder often means filling out many forms and measures to track one’s moods, symptoms, and health. Informed by lived experience, the BDLC is seeking to improve how we measure well-being by designing a new holistic, strengths-based, and individually tailored measure called the WELL-B. In 2023-2024, we asked participants in the Longitudinal Study of Bipolar Disorder to test the WELL-B to see if it was a helpful and satisfactory addition to current methods of assessing well-being. Nearly 250 participants contributed their insights, allowing us to establish the value of this new measure and prepare for testing in broader participant pools. Research to make sure that the WELL-B generates helpful information is ongoing.
Bipolar Disorder Learning Community
Engagement as the Engine: Redefining Collaboration in Learning Health Systems
A New Way to Measure Wellness
