Print Friendly

Planning and Evaluation Resources

Glossaries of Evaluation Terminology

• Evaluation Glossary (Health Canada, Program Evaluation for Public Health Programs)
• Monitoring and evaluation glossary. (UNDP Project)
• National Library of Medicine Glossary of Economic Evaluation Terms

Evaluation Planning

• Planning for Health Promotion Evaluation (DHS 2005)
  A guide for developing an evaluation plan
• Measuring health promotion impacts: A guide to impact evaluation in integrated health promotion (DHS 2003)
  The impact evaluation guide has been developed to support agencies assess and report on the impact of their work.
• The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook (Kellogg Foundation 2010)
  An easy to read, comprehensive resource for planning for and implementing an evaluation framework and utilising the evaluation results.

NSW Health Clinical Practice Improvement Guides

• Easy Guide to Clinical Practice Improvement (NSW Health 2002)
• The Clinicians toolkit for improving patient care (NSW Health 2001)
• The Community Tool Box (University of Kansas 2012)
  The Community Tool Box contains a range of useful information about designing, implementing and evaluating healthcare and community empowerment programs.
• The 2010 User-Friendly handbook for project evaluation (Fretchling 2010)
  This comprehensive manual provides a step-by-step guide to designing and implementing evaluations.
• Evaluation framework for health promotion and disease prevention programs
  This framework aims to improve the evaluation of health promotion and disease prevention programs by providing guidance on how to write an evaluation plan; agreed parameters for good evaluation and a list of indicators which allows comparison of the impacts and outcomes of different programs

Best Practice in Evaluation:

• A Guide to using data for health care quality improvement (VQC 2008)
  This resource provides comprehensive, but easy to understand, information about how health services can use data to support their quality improvement efforts. The guide contains information about strategies and tools to support effective data collection, analysis and reporting.
• Better Quality, Better Health Care (VQC 2005)
  This report provides a framework for evaluation across Victorian Health Services. It focuses on organisation wide evaluation and the important role of effective governance to lead quality improvement.
• The Evaluation Center: Evaluation Checklists (Western Michigan University 2010)
  This site provides refereed checklists for designing, budgeting, contracting, staffing, managing, and assessing evaluations of programs, personnel, students, and other evaluands; collecting, analysing, and reporting evaluation information; and determining merit, worth, and significance. Each checklist is a distillation of valuable lessons learned from practice.

Evaluation tools / methodologies:

• Quality and Service Improvement Tools (NHS 2006)
  This NHS website provides information about a range of quality improvement approaches, strategies and tools. It also outlines strategies to understand and evaluate specific clinical processes / systems (e.g. Demand Management or discharge planning).
• Survey Design (Creative Research Systems 2010)
• Process Mapping – a guide for health service staff (VQC 2007)
• Clinical Audit: How to guides (UHBristol 2007)
• Powell RA and Simple HM (1996) Methodology Matters V: Focus Groups
  
• Patient Reported Outcome Measures: Selection Criteria (University of Oxford 2011)
  A huge range of evaluation tools are already available to assist in the measurement of a range of health impacts and outcomes. When considering the use of these tools to evaluate your actions, it’s important to ensure that you select the right tool for the job. This article provides an overview of key criteria that you should consider in determining whether an evaluation tool is right for you.
• Guide to selecting and interpreting outcome measures: Mental Health
  This article describes a range of validated outcome measures related to mental health
• Organisational / Service Evaluation
  Better Quality, Better Health Care: A Safety and Quality Improvement Framework for Victorian Health Services
  The VQC Safety and Quality Framework is a strategic overview of the key principles and practices necessary for the effective monitoring, management and improvement of health services. The framework is built on a foundation of clinical governance, which clearly delineates the board responsibility for ensuring that service and care quality is addressed with the same rigor as financial governance, and ensures that corresponding accountabilities are delegated throughout the organisation. Four supplementary papers exploring the Clinical Governance roles within health services have been developed to support the Framework. These papers focus on specific responsibilities of: Boards, CEO’s and Senior Management, Clinicians & Consumers
• A model for Service Reviews (VHA 2010)
  This model was developed by the VHA to assist agencies to review program/discipline areas using a quality framework as the foundation.

Data Directories

• Health Care Quality and Safety Data Directory
  Providing improved access to better data is one component of a strategic approach to reducing the risk of harm and improving health care safety and quality in Victoria. The VQC commissioned an investigation of health databases to identify which data collections could support quality and safety initiatives in Victorian health services. The resultant “Health Care Quality and Safety Data Directory” (The Directory) contains details of data collections that have been evaluated as the most relevant to assist health services to improve the quality and safety of health care.
• How to search for evidence of intervention effectiveness and cost-effectiveness
  This tool is relevant to searching for evidence of intervention effectiveness. It provides guidance to the steps required to review the evidence on a given research question in the area of intervention effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. The search strategy and the sources of evidence are also presented.

Data Analysis

• A guide to using data for health care improvement (VQC 2008)
  This guide provides an introduction to the role of data in quality improvement and helps all members of the health care team understand the basic concepts and tools required to utilise data for quality improvement activities. The guide outlines the fundamental concepts of data collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting, and how these relate to the stages of the quality improvement cycle.
• How to use qualitative research evidence when making decisions about interventions
  This guide has been developed to help people working in health promotion and disease prevention to make better use of qualitative research evidence. Qualitative research can provide valuable evidence and information to guide your decision making about interventions, policy and practice.
• Evaluating Volunteer Programs
  Measuring the difference Volunteers Make: A guide to outcome evaluation for volunteer program.
  This practical toolkit provides a simple and easy to use framework for evaluation in volunteer programs.
• Volunteering good practice guide: Evaluation
  Provides practical information and tools to support the evaluation of volunteer programs
• Measuring the Impact of Employee Volunteering: What Metrics are Most Important and Why
  This blog provides introductory advice about relevant evaluation measures for volunteer programs

Partnership Evaluation Tools

• VicHealth Partnership Analysis Tool
  The Partnerships Analysis Tool provides a tool for organisations entering into or working with a partnership to assess, monitor and maximise its ongoing effectiveness. The tool is designed to provide a focus for discussion between agencies. The tool can be used at different times in the partnership. The tool may also be useful to a lead agency as a tool for reflection when forming and planning partnerships.
• Partnership Self-Assessment Tool
  This tool measures the partnership’s level of synergy in relation to a number of key indicators (e.g. leadership, efficiency, administration and management, and sufficiency of resources) and provides information that helps to identify strengths and weaknesses in these areas. It also measures partners’ perspectives about the partnership’s decision-making process, the benefits and drawbacks they experience as a result of participating in the partnership, and their overall satisfaction with the partnership. The Tool was designed to be used by partnerships for their own internal evaluation (it was not intended for use by external partnership evaluators). Although it is applicable to a broad range of partnerships, the Tool is not meant for partnerships at all stages of development or partnerships of all sizes. To use the Tool, a partnership needs to: Have been in existence at least six months; Be a group of people and organizations that continually work together to develop and modify strategies to achieve their goals; Have begun to take action to implement its plans; Have at least five active partners.
• Assessing Strategic Partnership: The partnership assessment tool
  The purpose of this tool is to provide a simple, quick and cost-effective way of assessing the effectiveness of partnership working. It enables a rapid appraisal (a quick ‘health check’) which graphically identifies problem areas. This allows partners to focus remedial action and resources commensurate with the seriousness and urgency of the problems. For those just setting up partnerships the Tool provides a checklist of what to ensure and what to avoid.
• The Partnership Assessment Tool
  This automated assessment tool provides a process by which partners can assess the expected value of a prospective partnership and identify ways to improve future partnership activities. Specifically, the tool can be used to assess preparedness, to identify opportunities for early adjustment, and to position for successful project implementation. Partners should use PAT after project planning is complete but before the project is launched. The tool can be used multiple times on the same project, for example, after improvements identified in an initial assessment have been implemented.