CHNM is committed to quality and effectiveness through a comprehensive strategy of program evaluation. Here the term “evaluation” refers to the systematic analysis of data and information related to services and policies that will be well documented to help human services organizations achieve better outcomes for clients.

We plan to collect data from the Medicaid program about healthcare costs in each area as well as partner with each community to develop an ongoing program of evaluation. By combining each community’s expertise on local needs and assets with UNM’s knowledge of evaluation and expertise in data collection and analysis, we can co-develop an evaluation and monitoring program that is both scientifically rigorous and directly useful to communities and CHNM. Rather than being a one-time activity, evaluation is better characterized as a continuum or process where each phase lays the foundation for the next phase.

In the initial period of implementation in each community, we will help a community identify outcomes that could improve as a result of CHNM, confirm that the initiative is being implemented as intended (e.g., appropriate individuals are being served by the program), and assess whether participating families are realizing the outcomes sought (e.g., fewer ER visits, higher rates of childhood immunizations, less food insecurity).  This evaluation continuum will help foster ongoing learning for program improvement, facilitate replicability, and lay a foundation for evaluation that would take place when the initiatives have reached maturity.  The latter includes a program for ongoing monitoring and continuous quality improvement (CQI) and assessing whether CHNM is improving client outcomes versus not having CHNM in the community.  The figure below shows an evaluation process that spans the lifecycle of CHNM in each community. 

In addition to collecting and analyzing data on inputs, activities, and outcomes, we will also capture the resources needed to implement CHNM in each community to inform scale up and enable comparisons of the costs of alternative implementation approaches and realization of outcomes.