Revisiting the Innovation Strategy performance measurement process: insights from practice

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Services Research
• Program Evaluation

Background:

• Performance measurement (PM) is crucial for public spending transparency and effectiveness.
• Current PM often relies on limited indicators, hindering understanding of intervention impact.
• Complex interventions require enhanced PM approaches for meaningful evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide recommendations for improving performance measurement, particularly for complex interventions.
• To enhance the ability of funders to determine intervention success and guide future funding.
• To address limitations in current performance reports and data collection.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of work conducted with the Public Health Agency of Canada Innovation Strategy (PHAC-IS).
• Review of current performance measurement practices and their limitations.
• Development of recommendations based on practical experience.

Main Results:

• Contextualizing results is vital for understanding intervention impact.
• Associating outcomes with well-defined interventions is essential.
• Using validated tools improves data collection and analysis efficiency.

Conclusions:

• Integrating contextualization, clear intervention definition, and validated tools enhances PM.
• Improved PM supports better decisions regarding intervention continuation, scaling, or adaptation.
• The proposed approach can be applied broadly to performance management processes.