Provincial CHC Evaluation Pilot

Context

Community Health Centres (CHC) have been operating in British Columbia (BC) for over 50 years and in recent years, the model has become more standardized, widely recognized and supported. CHC evaluation is critical to the advancement of the sector to inform improvement of CHC services and to demonstrate the value of CHCs to stakeholders and the public.

Aim

  • To develop a draft Provincial CHC Evaluation Model that aligns with the overall Ministry of Health evaluation of primary care services and the five core principles of BC CHCs.

  • To implement the Model in a sample of CHCs and use the learnings to inform future CHC evaluation.

Collaboration

This work represents a collaboration between the British Columbia Association of Community Health Centres (BCACHC), the Primary Care Innovation Support Unit (ISU), the British Columbia Primary Health Care Research Network (BCPHCRN), as well as key stakeholders and CHCs across BC.

Approach

The project was conducted in four phases:

  1. Co-development (May-August 2021): An Advisory Group of 15 key stakeholders was engaged, representing a range of backgrounds and experiences with CHCs and evaluation. The Advisory Group co-developed:

    • A theoretical framework, aligned with the BC CHC Principles and the emerging Provincial PCN Evaluation Framework;

    • Evaluation questions, focused around increased access for people experiencing barriers to care, increased integration and coordination and increased community capacity to address social determinants of health; and

    • Methods, including a CHC specific version of the Capacity and Access Measures in Primary Care Clinic Survey (CAMP-CS), a Client Experience survey and extraction of electronic medical record (EMR) data by the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN).

  2. Preparation (September 2021-January 2022): CHCs were approached and recruited to participate in the evaluation pilot project. Data collection tools were developed and refined.

  3. Implementation (February-March 2022): Participating CHCs collected data using the CAMP-CS and Client Experience survey. CPCSSN extracted EMR data.

  4. Reporting (April-June 2022): CAMP-CS data were summarized in individual reports for each of the participating CHCs and an additional report summarized the findings across all CHCs that had fully completed the survey. Client experience data was summarized across all CHCs to highlight the type of information that the survey could report. CPCSSN reported back to CHCs on an individual basis.

Next Steps

The ISU continue to work closely with BCACHC and other stakeholders to support CHC evaluation across BC. We are currently conducting a follow-on learning cycle, with CHCs who participated in the evaluation pilot, to explore CHCs perception and use of the evaluation data and to understand how the tools could be developed for future use.

Additional Resources

 

For more information please contact Elka.Humphrys@ubc.ca.