Reply To: Discussion Forum 1

[Yasmin Garcia Mendez]

Designing a new intervention.

1. Using your knowledge of the frameworks, what aspects of the intervention will you focus on to guide your planning and eventual success of the intervention?

I will focus on
1) the target population, understand its characteristics, rehabilitation needs and preferences, beliefs and culture, etc.
2) the intervention itself, the evidence supporting the effectiveness of the intervention on the target population, its design and costs, the resources, capacity and expertise needed to implement it, its advantage over other interventions, and indicators or outcome measures are recommended to measure the effectiveness of the intervention and whether outcomes are aceptable and appropriate.
3) the implementation setting characteristics, whether the intervention is feasible and aligned with the organization’s interests, if there is institutional support to implement the intervention, and whether the institution has the capacity, resources, expertise and interest to properly implement it in terms of cost and time.
4) Monitoring and evaluation, would focus also on monitoring the progress of the implementation by collecting data on the above indicators periodically to compare against established targets or goals and to timely identify problems in the implementation process and make adjustments if needed. I would also evaluate if the ultimate goal of the intervention was achieved and if the intervention has become part of routine practice of the organization and make modifications to the project if needed.

What indicators will you use to monitor the success of the intervention on an ongoing basis? What steps will you take to ensure adequate monitoring and evaluation of the intervention?

The indicators will depend on the intervention, but I will try to use indicators in the 3 data domains: health status, health system and determinants of health. The first to collect baseline data on functioning and compared with post-intervention implementation data, outcome measures on the effectiveness of the intervention to achieve its goals; the second set of indicators to measure what was needed for the intervention in terms of inputs (ex. human resources, financing), and what was obtained in terms of outputs and outcomes (ex. quality of the service, utilization) for the intervention; and finally, determinants of health to understand how these impact/affect results.

The steps I would take to ensure adequate monitoring and evaluation would be 1) definition of the research question that will guide the monitoring and evaluation efforts, 2) identification of indicators/data to collect, frequency and source, 3)identification and determination of methods to collect data indicators, analyze, compare and assess results, and 4) making recommendations and modifications/adjustments to the intervention.