Outcome Measures for State Flex Program Financial and Operational Improvement Interventions

The Flex Monitoring Team has released a new policy brief:  https://www.flexmonitoring.org/publication/outcome-measures-state-flex-program-financial-and-operational-improvement-interventions

The brief reviews outcome measures for State Flex Program (SFP) interventions conducted under Program Area 2: Financial and Operational Improvement (FOI), a mandatory area of SFP activity. The FMT explored the types of FOI projects proposed by a subset of 14 SFPs during Fiscal Year 2015-2018 and the challenges they faced in monitoring the impact of their interventions on Critical Access Hospital (CAH) financial and operational performance.

This product describes key categories of interventions implemented by these 14 SFPs and their proposed output and high-level outcomes measures. It further outlines the theory of change for each category, and provides examples of short- and intermediate-term outcome measures to provide a bridge between project activities and long-term, high-level outcomes. The brief concludes with suggestions for SFPs to improve their ability to document the outcome of SFP FOI initiatives and evaluate overall program impact. A companion brief provides an inventory of all SFP FOI initiatives and a more detailed analysis of the interventions undertaken by a subset of 14 SFPs.