Evaluation Program
Evaluation serves as the foundation for providing leadership, faculty, and staff at the Institute of Translational Health Sciences with the information necessary to determine if we are achieving our mission of speeding science to the clinic for the benefit of patients and communities throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. More specifically, our evaluation program drives the assessment of our progress in developing and offering the resources, services, and tools that enable us to achieve our mission.
The evaluation program at ITHS is guided by the American Evaluation Association Program Evaluation Standards and evaluation guidelines specific to NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards. These guidelines collectively outline several conventions for evaluators and organizations to employ to ensure that evaluations are useful for stakeholders, well carried out, trustworthy, and open to discussion within and outside our community as requested.
ITHS leadership recognizes the value of both qualitative and quantitative data and the importance of multiple perspectives when making key decisions and determining program success and impact. Accordingly, the evaluation program at the ITHS takes a collaborative approach to keeping leadership, faculty, and staff informed of program impact, with a focus on a cycle of data collection, analysis, use, and implementation.
This iterative cycle of data collection and use helps ITHS leadership to stay informed of program progress, including areas that are working well or need improvement. The cycle also provides the necessary information to gauge impacts on a broader, quantifiable scale as well as to better understand the unique environments and contexts that are beyond these numbers.