Evaluation Presentation for Healthcare Improvement Program - Essay Example

Title: Evaluation Presentation for Healthcare Improvement Program Name Institution Executive Summary The safety of the patient has always been at the heart of the health care practices throughout the history. However, globally there have been occasional non-deliberate accidental harms occurring to the patients seeking care within health care facilities. These unfavorable incidents might occur at every level of health care irrespective of whether it is clinical, managerial, preventive, or general health care. Several published survey on the safety of patients indicate that within industrialized advanced states, most of these adverse events are preventable and mostly occur due to shortages within the system, organizational designs, and operations. To some extent, poor performance of the healthcare staff also contributes to such disparities (Wyatt & Rogers, 2005). It is from such background the plan will be focusing on ways to improve health care organizational processes such as management, service administration, service provision, and delivery. Accessing quality health care is the right of every person globally. Therefore, the plan will be seeking to improve these processes since they are the major determinants of quality services offered with the health care sectors. Moreover, the report will recommend an intervention that might help address challenges associated with poor performance within the health care institutions. The project will focus on prospective evaluation method as it considers all the components of project and ensures exploitation of all issues likely to influence the implementation negatively (Ovretveit, 1998). There are likely to risks that might influence the implementation processes and alteration of the desired feedback. The plan will develop mechanisms and contingency plans of addressing these problems. The evaluation method will focus on various processes and services that affect the performance of the healthcare facilities (Jones, 2008). As a result, the evaluation will be seeking to develop adequate intervention mechanism that would help to improve the quality of the healthcare facilities. Most healthcare facilities perform poorly due to inadequate level of involvement of the stakeholders. Therefore, the plan will develop effective methods of ensuring that all the stakeholders contribute in the plan with an aim of enhancing accountability and reliability of the healthcare institutions. Evaluation Type The type of evaluation method depends on the implementation stage of the intervention. According to Ovretveit (1998), it is important to employ evaluability assessment before the intervention to appraise the cost and impact associated with implementation of the programme. Evaluability assessment is a sensitive phase as it involves making decision whether full evaluation is important depending on the emerging issues realized at the initial stages of intervention implementation. Therefore, the assessments in such stage must be to clarify the intervention, define its boundary, and important evaluation questions that require evaluation. Prospective evaluation method plays an important role in enabling the management define the objectives precisely and agree with other team members on the best methods assessing the intervention (Langbein & Felbinger, 2006). The evaluation method used determines the type of evaluation design utilized. However, each design has it costs and benefits that critically require analysis. Other evaluation methods used at the intervention stage are processes, formative, and pluralist. Process evaluation involves informing the major stakeholders what the intervention would create, implementation method, and the effectiveness of intervention. Formative evaluation aims at improving the intervention making it suitable at the initial stage while pluralist investigates the extent of success of the used intervention by exploring the perception of different stakeholders. The plan will employ prospective evaluation method as it enables the evaluators to attribute the causes and effect between the recommended intervention and outcome. Through prospective method, evaluation begins during the design phase of the interventions. Moreover, the method will incorporate information from both the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the recommended intervention. Any serious plans must take into consideration the possibility that the intervention might not yield the intended objectives. Prospective method majorly focuses on conducting feasibility studies before implementation of the intervention (Valente, 2002). It is important as it offers an opportunity of assessing all the possible consequences and costs prior to implementation. An intervention might look very accommodative but in the actual sense might contribute to poor organizational performance especially of not implemented properly. Prospective methods integrate different analytical methods including feasibility, predictive, simulations, front-end, and evaluability assessment. Analysis using prospective method might help to identify factors that right to counteract the newly designed intervention. Hence, it gives insight into the expectations and criteria for addressing these problems before they occur (Gilles, 2013. Design of Evaluation Choosing the most appropriate evaluation design could be very challenging to most evaluators. However, it is one of the most important step of planning as it reveals the blueprint, strategy, and outlines of the questions associated with intervention recommended. Factors determining the type of design used in the evaluation process include the nature of the intervention, evaluation questions, development stage, and reasons for seeking intervention, skill, and practical concerns. To improve the processes within the health care, the plan will focus on descriptive designs while evaluating the intervention. The design shows whether the intervention programme is operating as planned, provides the management with the required feedback on the processes taking place within the health care, and determines whether the interventions produce the required outputs and outcomes. Descriptive design, also referred to as Type 1, helps in describing all the features of the intervention to be implemented within the required context. Besides, it elaborates on the implementation process. Descriptive design might also help in clarifying the processes, goals, and objectives of the interventions. The descriptions highlighted by the design signals the problems that are likely to affect the implementation, but they are not scientific since their quality depends on the observations made. To some extent, observations might be considered a limitation at it could result in biasness. The design will be utilized concurrently during the implementation of the intervention. There are several strengths associate with descriptive design. Some of these strengths include cheap and simple to conduct and utilizes routinely collected information. It also offers the evaluators with an opportunity of presenting the genesis of idea; explore what happened and reasons, and gives account of the human side of the programme. Besides, it presents the criteria of exploring the project dynamics and presents the output in their complexity without subjecting them to confinement like other evaluation designs. Despite these strengths, the method has several limitations (Whitehead, 2006). Description design is considered traditional, qualitative, and unreliable. The method typically works with single or small clusters of projects such that it makes it difficult to generalize their results to the whole portfolio of the project. The errors in the hypothesis tested have the ability of yielding misimpressions of the programme quality or the influential factors. Moreover, reduction of data to numbers could result in loss of information. Description designs are inflexible since it is not easy to modify the instruments once the project begins. Perspective of the Evaluation The plan will use economic evaluation in testing the hypothesis and effects of intervention. Stakeholders play an important role in the type of evaluation perspective employed in each project. Since the plan will be seeking to improve the services offered within the health care, the stakeholder will involve the locals, state governments, health practitioners, and interested parties. The decision made depends on the specific factors that require intervention. Therefore, poor choice might lead to undesired results. While aiming to solve a problem, it is important to start at some standpoint to enable the evaluation process focus on specific issues that contribute to the poor performances in question (Chevalier, & Buckles, 2013). The plan will be seeking to improve the quality of services offered within the health care facilities. Hence, the purpose and perspective of evaluation should focus on enhancing the factors that determine output. The method will assess the resource use of the recommended intervention. Moreover, it is a perspective that brings together organizational management, financiers, and policy makers to ensure that the evaluation method utilized considers the views of important stakeholders. Economic evaluation method used will focus on various processes, inputs, and outputs commonly witnessed within healthcare facilities through quantification in monetary forms. To ensure that the project meets its desired objectives, the plan will focus on various aspects of input and outputs of the project (Campobasso & Hosking, 2004). Through economic evaluation, the plan will describe the cost involved in the implementation of the intervention and ways of minimizing these costs. With regard to the output, the plan will focus on cost effectiveness, cost utility, and cost benefit while analyzing the outcomes of the programme. The method is important in providing information about organizational resources, uses the outcome to measure the effectiveness of the intervention, and useful in evaluating processes and services within the health care facilities. Within healthcare, economic evaluation aims at meeting the demand of decision-making. The growth of both the public and private healthcare systems in the recent years reflects the needs of having people in health economics. Therefore, analysis and understanding resource issues within the healthcare is important in ensuring effective management of these facilities (Gray & Larson, 2008). Besides, it can inform decision makers about the efficiency and resources allocation while implementing the intervention. The plan focused on the method since it maximizes the benefits from the healthcare spending, overcomes variations in accessibility, contains costs and ways managing demand, and provides organizations within the healthcare sector with the bargaining power while purchasing the healthcare products. Evaluation Aims, Methods, Outcomes, and Measures Aims To determine reasons behind poor performances within the healthcare sectors To design interventions of improving processes, management, and service delivery Methods To ensure effective and efficient data collection method, the project will use survey methods, random sampling, self-administration of questionnaires, and in-depth interviews as methods of collecting information. Other important methods of collecting data that the programme will focus on are consultations and advice from the specialist in healthcare management issues. Outcomes The expected outcomes from the intervention depend on the aims of implementing the project. They include: i. Enhanced performance within the healthcare ii. Improved processes, management, and service delivery Measures 1. Achievement of the first outcome would materialize if more than 90% of the stakeholders report positive feedback regarding the intervention. 2. The second outcome will be considered successful as well if more than 90% participants agree with improvement in processes, management, and delivery of services Planning For Evaluation Evaluation at the planning stage requires involvement of the stakeholders to discuss the need for such process. Upon making the agreement to conduct the evaluation, there is need to choose the designs, perspective, and discussion of discussions. The evaluators will review the intervention and finalize the design depending on the agreement with the key stakeholders. After such activities, the project will the gather information using different methods, examine them to establish their suitability in meeting the objectives, and methods of exploiting them. The major factor to consider while planning a project is the availability of resources (Ferlie, Lynn, & Pollitt, 2005). Most activities require smart and skilled people; hence, without the right people as project team, it is bound to fail. Effective planning also requires open communication in place. To improve the quality of the current services within the healthcare, it is crucial to focus on better communication methods that would make the stakeholders freely discuss matter affecting them. Every project plan and implementation requires consideration of time. Have many activities with limited period could lead to rushing of activities thus undesired results. In terms of money, there is need to consider the budget (Anderson, 2004). Each identified activities will be budgeted for to enhance accountability and prevent issues associated with inadequate funds after initiating the project. To some extent, the cost of material or equipment might increase. As a result, the project will have a contingency budget to cater for such deficits. More importantly, there is need to consider availability and accessibility of relevant information required for effective implementation of the project. To acquire such information, the project will focus intensively on stakeholder involvement since they have crucial information that might be inaccessible to others (DiNardo, Lee, & National Bureau of Economic Research, 2010). The project will be seeking to eliminate any form of biasness as possible. Therefore, most people to collect information will be those with no interest in the project. Monitoring and evaluating every activity within the project on daily basis might be difficult. As a result, the project will have a representative at every part of the implementation process to report daily activities. Recruiting data collectors will depend on whether they have interest in the project or not. Moreover, collectors will have to show passion and skills in data collection methods to prevent biasness. Implementing the Evaluation Activities Responsible personnel Jan-Feb 2014 Mar-Apr 2014 May- June 2014 Jul- Aug 2014 Sept- Oct 2014 Nov-Dec 2014 Jan -Feb 2015 Feb-Apr 2015 Gathering of data from participants (patients, management, and other stakeholders) Data collectors Data analysis Team evaluators Formulation & finalizing data reporting Team evaluators Judging the value of evaluation results Key stakeholder Self-review Team evaluators The Tools and Strategies of Minimizing Risks Risks can have negative impact on the desired results of the project; therefore, it is important to have adequate measures to controlling them. Each element of the project presents its unique risk. To minimize such, the project will avoid certain elements that impose serious risks some of the risks include scientific issues and problems, practical, political, and ethical issues. (Kutcher & Chehil, 2011). some risks are unavoidable. To tame the impact of risks, the project will develop a contingency plan of remedying the situation if the risk occurs. Budget deficit and withdrawal of main stakeholders are the risks that require contingency plans. The project will transfer the risks associated with the loss of data to organization with the capacity of managing these risks. Risk 1 Stage Characteristics 1 Risk identification: Increased number of participants dropping out of the project and contributing biased information 2 Impact assessment: Participants are the important contributors of required information. Therefore, their withdrawal might result in serious problems and inaccuracy. 3 Strategies to reduce impact: Compensating the participants for their time and contribution of required information Developing better methods of involving the participants that would enhance trust 4 Review and development: Reviewing the number of participant after every month to identify the level of reduction Risk 2 Stage Characteristics 1 Risk identification: Inadequate funds to implement fully the intervention 2 Impact Assessment: Inadequate fund could lead to waste of time and resources 3 Strategies to reduce impact: Ensuring that all the activities are accounted for properly and adequate funds are allocated for such activities Involving more sponsors as a method of raising funds 4 Review and development: Regularly monitoring the activities if they are within the plans Having an audit team to ensure that funds are utilized appropriately Risk 3 Stage Characteristics 1 Identify the risk: The stakeholders might reject the proposal 2 Impact Assessment: Such rejections might not affect the implementation time, however, it could lead in late implementation 3 Strategies to reduce impact: Involving the stakeholders at parts of the planning process 4 Review and development: Make plans with the stakeholders to gather their views and incorporate them in the plan continuously Stakeholders and Associated Communication The stakeholders of the project will include sponsors, local communities, the management of the healthcare facilities, and parties with similar interest. However, the method use in communication might differ from one person to another depending on the urgency and confidentiality of the information. The local communities and concerned parties will access relevant information through the internet Web pages and health news media. Sponsor will receive information through emails while staffs through the newspapers while the management through meeting and special sessions. References Anderson, J. (2004). Project management in health and community services. Australian Health Review, 27(2), 103-104. Campobasso, F., & Hosking, J. E. (2004). Two Factors in Project Success: A Clear Process and a Strong Team. Journal of Healthcare Management, 49(4), 221-225. Chevalier, J. M., & Buckles, D. J. (2013). Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. DiNardo, J. E., Lee, D. S., & National Bureau of Economic Research. (2010). Program evaluation and research designs. 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