In order to help individuals and families thrive, communities must address needs such as education, jobs, housing, healthcare, and a safe environment. When organizations in the community work together, they have the ability to address complex social problems and improve the health and well-being of community residents. One model for this type of community collaboration is called a Connected community of care (CCC).
Connected communities of care, also known as social care networks or care communities, leverage technology to connect government, medical and community-based organizations to collectively address social determinants of health (SDOH). From access to affordable housing and healthy foods to health-related services, CCCs address all aspects of health and well-being for community members and provide them with access to resources and programs available from local community-based organizations (CBOs).
Factoring in Data, Measurement and Evaluation
There’s no question that getting a CCC off the ground is a heavy lift, and demonstrating its impact is critical to building the momentum of the initiative and maximizing the community’s return on investment. Not only do CCCs need to demonstrate impact to the initiative’s existing internal stakeholders for continuous improvement purposes, they also need to be able to quantify and communicate their social impact to recruiting additional partners, who may play critical roles in filling service gaps and meeting additional community needs that contribute to SDOH. Illustrating social impact is also a key to attracting funders, whose investment is needed to expand the reach of services provided and provide support in terms of developing and maintaining the core operational infrastructure of the CCC.
However your CCC defines “making a positive difference,” the common threads that lead to long-term sustainability of CCC initiatives involve data, measurement, and evaluation. Simply put, the outcomes you wish to achieve must be linked to specific measures. And a handful of the right performance measures—properly tracked—will inform the initiative through actionable data.
Having Data at Your Fingertips Makes for More Agile CCC Initiatives
Timely data-driven decision-making is contingent upon only two things: the access you have to the data, and the skillset needed to analyze it. SureImpact is a data-collection and reporting platform that enables real-time data collection across all organizations participating in your CCC. The increased frequency in feedback allows you to make the necessary program or operational modifications more quickly, and with fewer disruptions than waiting for quarterly or annual reporting periods. This results in a higher level of agility and is important for CCCs aiming to deliver more effective, individualized, culturally relevant solutions that will endure over time—ultimately reducing the overall community-level demand for services and resources.
For the data analysis and evaluation part of this equation, if your CCC doesn’t have the resources in-house to perform this work, SureImpact’s sister organization, Measurement Resources Company, has extensive performance management and program evaluation experience that includes many large-scale, multi-sector collaborative projects. Together, SureImpact and Measurement Resources provide the industry expertise and powerful data collection and reporting platform to determine the effectiveness of your CCC and increase your overall impact in the community.
To learn more, check out our on-demand webinar “Engaged & Empowered – How to use technology to improve collaboration and efficiency, and drive social impact.”
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