Program Evaluation for Health Professionals: What It Is, What It Isn’t and How to Do It

Abstract

Health professionals deliver a range of health services to individuals and communities. The evaluation of these services is an important component of these programs and health professionals should have the requisite knowledge, attributes, and skills to evaluate the impact of the services they provide. However, health professionals are seldom adequately prepared by their training or work experience to do this well. In this article we provide a suitable framework and guidance to enable health professionals to appropriately undertake useful program evaluation. We introduce and discuss “Easy Evaluation” and provide guidelines for its implementation. The framework presented distinguishes program evaluation from research and encourages health professionals to apply an evaluative lens in order that value judgements about the merit, worth, and significance of programs can be made. Examples from our evaluation practice are drawn on to illustrate how program evaluation can be used across the health care spectrum.