Evaluating Collaborations

Why Evaluate Collaborations?

There are many important reasons for evaluating collaborations between public health and primary care.

See also: 5 Reasons to Evaluate Collaborations

1. Evaluating and identifying what structures and processes need to be revised will support improvement on the quality of the collaboration.

The remoteness of the location and/or the challenging characteristics of the physical space in which the collaborative activities take place can present barriers to some segments of the population from accessing the services.

Further, ineffective communication between public health and primary care partners can also impede the collaborative process.

2. Knowing the extent to which the goals of the collaboration are being reached is valuable insight regarding the ongoing progress.

 The goals of the collaboration may include a segment of the population that is actually improving by accessing available services and receiving evidence-based care within their area.

3. Another reason to conduct evaluative research is to determine why collaborations are successful.

The knowledge of a collaboration’s success can support its endurance. One nutritionist explains it this way, “If we don’t have an evaluation to show our collaboration’s effectiveness, we won’t be sustainable.”

4. Funders require budget accountability.

Whether the collaboration is achieving positive impacts is important for government funders who have a public accountability to spend the health dollars judiciously.

5. Resource advocacy for collaborations is an important strategy.

Collaborative partners can use evaluation data to advocate for resources to enhance service organization and delivery.