
Tools & Resources
Keep checking in, as we will be adding more resources as we locate or receive them.
If you have resources you would like to recommend, or a "home-grown" tool that you would like to share, please email us at MMFgrants@commonspirit.org.
Check out The Community Toolbox via the University of Kansas. The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change.
The Toolkit for Everyone Aligning and Measuring (TEAM) is designed to help people think about measurement in the context of health collaboratives and aligning efforts across sectors. People participating in collaboratives have different roles, needs, and perspectives. A key purpose of the TEAM is to help translate the ideas in the Framework for Aligning Sectors to more concrete actions for users. The TEAM contains four main parts that each help people think about measurement in a different way.
- Base Set: The Base Set is a set of measures for establishing whether or not a collaborative is aligning in terms of the Framework for Aligning Sectors.
- Featured Set: The Featured Set is a collection of measures designed to help people begin to think about whether they are aligning well.
- GrAASP: The GrAASP tool guides users in a process of coming to consensus with their partners on the status of their collaborative or aligning effort on several key dimensions, including those highlighted in the Framework for Aligning Sectors.
- Compendium of Measures: The Compendium of Measures is a repository of existing measures and tools relevant to cross-sector aligning. It was curated by the Georgia Health Policy Center during the initial development of the TEAM. Many of the measures and tools in the Compendium of Measures served as raw materials for creating the three assessments in the TEAM.
The Practical Playbook: Building Multisector Partnerships That Work is a great resource for cross-sector partnership development. The Playbook is supported by the de Beaumont Foundation, the CDC, and Duke Family Medicine and Community health.
The National Academy of Medicine's webinar A Conversation on Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement is a useful framework for assessing community partnerships and engagement.
Program Evaluation may seem daunting, and there are a number of ways to get started - this list is meant to point you to resources that we have found useful. The MMF does not require that you use each and every one of these tools, but we encourage you to think broadly about your evaluation - in addition to individual outcomes (Mission Outcomes), it is important to know how your work influenced system changes (System Outcomes) and what you learned along the way that might be valuable for others who are doing similar work (Strategic Learning).
Community Commons is a well-developed online platform with a variety of tools and resources for building and evaluating programs for community health and well-being. Community Commons is supported by the Institute for People, Place and Possibility.
Developing a Theory of Change from the Annie E. Casey Foundation is a useful and practical guide for articulating the whys and hows of program development and evaluation planning.
RE-AIM & PRISM are practical models for organizing and thinking through program evaluation. The website is designed to assist users in planning, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining programs considering critical contextual factors.
- RE-AIM is a framework to guide the planning and evaluation of programs according to the 5 key RE-AIM outcomes: Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance. Use these outcome domains to develop your evaluation questions. From there, you can develop your specific goals and objectives. Examples of RE-AIM questions:
- REACH: Did our program include a significant proportion of individuals in our community that have this need?
- EFFECTIVENESS: Did participants report improvements in their confidence in managing their health?
- ADOPTION: Was our program accepted by participants and our community as essential to improving community health? Have we gained new champions and resources?
- IMPLEMENTATION: Did our original plan for implementation work? What changes or adjustments did we make along the way that could help other communities do similar work?
- MAINTENANCE: Have we identified new resources for sustaining this work? What are the true costs of implementation, spread and scale?
- The Practical Implementation Sustainability Model (PRISM) includes key, multilevel contextual factors relevant to program implementation (including RE-AIM outcomes) throughout all stages from planning through sustainment.
Here's a good read: Evaluating Systems Change Results: An Inquiry Framework by Mark Cabaj. And here is a quick image of how to connect your RE-AIM concepts to Mission Outcomes, System Outcomes, and Strategic Learning.
For logic model development, the Kellogg Foundation's guide is a tried and true resource. We recommend that you work "backwards" from your long-term vision to construct your logic model. Logic models are the most useful for identifying the resources you need to achieve your vision.
The CDC's Program Evaluation Guide is also a great resource.
The Management Center has a number of tools available for developing SMARTIE objectives. SMARTIE stands for Strategic, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, Time-bound, Inclusive, and Equitable. By incorporating equity and inclusion components to your SMART objectives, you can make sure your organization’s commitment to equity and inclusion is anchored by tangible and actionable steps. When thinking about goals vs objectives, the goal is the "big picture" synopsis, and the objectives are the indicators that you are moving toward achieving your goal(s). A goal may have multiple objectives.
The Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN) collects, summarizes, and disseminates research resources and findings to researchers and other stakeholders via an interactive website and evidence library.
The Rural Health Information Hub has a number of toolkits for rural communities that may be useful for urban and suburban communities as well. Toolkits include aging in place, community health workers, care coordination, telehealth, transportation, early childhood health, maternal health, and so much more.
PCORI (the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute) has developed a great resource for identifying published evidence for the effectiveness of Social Needs Interventions to Improve Health Outcomes
The Playbook: Better Care for People with Complex Needs is a great resource for locating evidence-based and promising practices for improving complex care. This online resource center is designed for health care stakeholders — including providers, health systems, health plans, community-based organizations, and policymakers — who seek to "move evidence to action and accelerate adoption of best practices in complex care."
Community Commons is a well-developed online platform with a variety of tools and data resources, including mapping.
PolicyMap is a mapping application and analytics platform with over a data warehouse of over 50,000 indicators. Contact Adam Manypenny or Michael Bilton to get access to CommonSpirit's platform!
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps is a program of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that provides data, evidence, guidance, and examples to build awareness of the multiple factors that influence health and support leaders in growing community power to improve health equity.
The Raising the Bar framework was developed to help healthcare leaders meet their mission. Raising the Bar's foundational principles were developed to help healthcare systems center their equity work. The website is a great resource for concepts and ideas for improving equity by applying essential principles and developing concrete actions.
Good Read: Principles and Questions for Advancing Equitable Wellbeing in Systems. This article features the development of questions to assess whether your approach/program is advancing wellbeing and equity. The questions are based on the five principles of the Wellbeing Blueprint developed by the Full Frame Initiative.
Leading Practices to Advance Equity and Support of Underserved Communities throughout Health and Human Services Programs: The content found on this page was initially created to inform federal staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In an effort to increase collaboration and share promising practices, the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation has made these tools available for both public and private partners. Potential audiences that may be interested in these materials, include, but are not limited to, state and local governments, tribal governments, and other private or non-profit organizations focused on programs and policies relating to health and human services. The tools available include:
© Copyright 2022 CommonSpirit Health. All rights reserved. The information contained on this site is both proprietary and confidential.
Copying, dissemination, or distribution of such information outside of CommonSpirit is strictly prohibited.