Practices and Perceptions of Community Health Centres Professionals Toward Evaluation: A Qualitative Study

Area of Science:

• Primary Care Research
• Health Services Evaluation
• Organizational Studies

Background:

• Evaluation is crucial for enhancing quality and efficiency in multidisciplinary primary care organizations.
• Limited understanding exists regarding evaluation practices and professional perceptions in community health centers.
• This study focuses on Belgian community health centers to explore evaluation in this context.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore current evaluation practices within Belgian community health centers.
• To understand professionals' perspectives on evaluation in their work.
• To identify how evaluation contributes to service quality and efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 professionals.
• Included participants from 12 different Belgian community health centers.
• Focused on gathering in-depth insights into evaluation experiences.

Main Results:

• Formal and informal evaluation practices are complementary in community health centers.
• Challenges in formal evaluation (relevance, utility, feasibility) drive the use of informal methods.
• Professionals perceive informal evaluation as more aligned with community health center values.

Conclusions:

• A hybrid approach combining formal and informal evaluation is recommended.
• Integrating care ethics from informal practices can humanize and contextualize formal evaluation.
• This approach can lead to more effective and value-aligned service improvement.