Nearly 10 years ago at the Seton Asthma Center, in Austin, Texas, we experienced alarming numbers of ER visits and readmission rates for pediatric asthma patients in our community. We began to question our methods: Where were our gaps? What could we enhance? And more importantly, how could we better serve our community? In short, we wanted to understand how to provide better, comprehensive asthma management to the children we treated to improve their quality of life.
We took this as an opportunity to evaluate our programmatic goals and activities to determine how to achieve the results that would align with our goals of improving asthma health outcomes. After implementing new strategies, including how we conducted asthma education outreach to families, we started to see fewer children returning to the ER. However, in order to determine if we achieved success, we really needed to measure our results. To do so, we tracked patients’ doctor and ER visits for one year, as well as had patients complete quality of life assessments. Coupling this information with their previous year’s medical history allowed us to do a comparative evaluation of each child’s condition.
The results were amazing. We saw an almost 50 percent decline in ER visits, a 90 percent decrease in patient visits and a positive return on investment – for every dollar we spent on program expenses, we were able to demonstrate a $5 return. It is because of our evaluation efforts that I am able to describe the positive impact our program has had on managing asthma in our community. This impact has been a great asset in communicating the value we bring to our stakeholders.
How does your program measure its impact? Has evaluation helped you showcase your program’s successes to your stakeholders? What tools or resources were helpful to you during the process of evaluating your program?
Tell us about your ideas and knowledge of evaluation by starting a discussion or sharing a resource with us and telling us how your program is working to measure its successes.
About the author: Steve Conti has been with the Seton Family of Hospitals for 15 years and currently serves as the Director of Disease Management.
Hi Steve. I am trying to
Hi Steve. I am trying to evaluate a similar program in RI. I wonder if we can chat via telephone to learn more about your approach to measurement and evaluation design? David Robinson (401-222-3059)
Hi David, For more
Hi David,
For more information on the Seton Program, you can also check out their program snapshot on the Network: http://www.asthmacommunitynetwork.org/node/3326. Seton Asthma Center is the recipient of a National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management and this snapshot provides more in-depth coverage of their award-winning program practices, including evaluation.
Also, have you had an opportunity to explore the webinar series on Program Evaluation Basics? This learning series was presented by CDC and EPA and focuses on the steps to measure and evaluate asthma programs. These webinars may offer a great foundation to measure and evaluate your program. The series includes an overview of the CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health, along with tips to starting an evaluation program, engaging stakeholders, developing a logic model, and gathering and using data. Video archives and copies of the presentations are available on the Resources page: http://www.asthmacommunitynetwork.org/webinars.
The Resource Bank also includes a diverse array of materials submitted by member programs. Several high quality resources are available on program evaluation that can assist you with your evaluation design – just use the keyword “Evaluation” in the search criteria. For example, the Evaluation Guide from the Robert Wood Foundation may be helpful: http://www.asthmacommunitynetwork.org/node/5210.
Regards,
Brandy
David, I would be happy to
David,
I would be happy to help. Feel free to call or email me at your convenience.
Steve
512.324.5909
sconti@seton.org