One of our primary goals over the last couple of years has been to shift the focus of our performance measures toward actual outcomes. In other words, we don’t want to measure our success on simple activities like whether we did an intervention, placed an ad, or whether someone’s paperwork is right- but on whether our interventions and services actually make a difference. That’s where our data Dashboard resources come in.
Last year we rolled out our Arizona Health Matters website- to help the public health system to access data and information about community health- and to measure community outcomes. It helps the public health system, planners, policy makers, and community members learn about issues and identify improvements. On the site you can compare Arizona’s health with other communities and the nation, using more than 100 health and quality of life indicators; search and compare data by County and zip code within Arizona; learn about evidence-based promising practices or use the Report Assistant to create quick reports and summaries.
Another outcome data source is our Health Status Report which measures 70 public health outcome indicators over the last 10 years. Our annual Behavioral Risk Factor Survey plays a role… our brand new 2010 Report provides key data that can be used to monitor and plan health promotion and help our public health system to better target our intervention strategies for chronic disease prevention in Arizona.
We’re also using Outcome Dashboards throughout the behavioral health system to measure effectiveness… and allowing users to review performance and outcomes information (employment, housing, staying out of crisis centers, abstaining from substance abuse, avoiding arrests, etc.) at the statewide level. Examples of our accomplishments are available in outcome dashboards developed by CPSA, NARBHA, Cenpatico and Magellan.
