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Related Experiment Videos

Needs assessment must become more change-focused

P Hawe1

  • 1Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney, NSW.

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health
|October 1, 1996
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Current needs-assessment methods often maintain the status quo. To drive meaningful change in service delivery, data collection must be specifically designed to inform decision-making and facilitate desired outcomes.

Area of Science:

  • Health Services Research
  • Program Evaluation
  • Public Health Policy

Background:

  • Area-based needs-assessment methods frequently perpetuate existing service delivery models.
  • Data collection processes can become routine and self-serving, hindering genuine progress.
  • A critical re-evaluation of data collection's role in driving change is necessary.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To challenge the ritualistic nature of current data collection practices in needs assessment.
  • To align data collection procedures with specific decision-making processes and desired change outcomes.
  • To explore how data collection can be redirected to foster transformative change in service delivery.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptualizing change through conflict and functionalist models.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analyzing the focus of data collection under different change paradigms (consumer advocacy vs. managerial information needs).
  • Proposing the use of hypothetical results to guide data collection strategy and foresee potential impacts.

    • Main Results:

    • Existing broad-brush needs-assessment procedures are often ineffective and dilute change agendas.
    • Conflict model emphasizes consumer-driven advocacy, requiring data on felt needs.
    • Functionalist model prioritizes managerial data on marginal health gains and costs for resource allocation.

    Conclusions:

    • Needs assessment must move beyond routine data collection to actively support specific change processes.
    • Data collection procedures need to be more specific and directed, tailored to either advocacy or resource justification.
    • Integrating hypothetical outcome analysis can improve the strategic direction of data collection for impactful change.