Focus Areas

Health is much broader than "health care." CCHE takes a holistic approach to health improvement. We work closely with communities, public health departments, policymakers and funders on initiatives to reduce health disparities and improve community health. Whether it is a community needs assessment, an evaluation of a small community garden, or partnering with a multi-sector coalition, we:  

• Leverage our understanding of social and structural determinants of health to address root causes
• Ground our work in the local context, listening closely to community stakeholders to understand the relevant systems and infrastructure
• Develop practical measures and frameworks to understand progress, including providing real-time feedback. For example, CCHE's Dose Toolkit allows us to measure the effects of different strategies on a common goal and then use this information to strengthen the overall impact 

CCHE brings decades of experience evaluating clinical care initiatives, working across settings ranging from large health systems to individual safety net clinics. Our practical, utilization-focused approach promotes learning, elevates promising practices, and measures outcomes while minimizing the burden on healthcare providers and staff. Our clinical care work includes: 

• Effective technical assistance and coaching to help healthcare organizations use data to drive decision-making and quality improvement
• Expertise in best practices for population health management, clinic-community linkages, behavioral health-primary care integration, and team-based care
• Close partnerships with funders, program and clinical staff to ensure that findings are actionable in real time
• Ability to understand the effectiveness of emerging approaches and co-develop new tools to measure progress. For example, our new capacity development tool supports organizations as they grow capacity around integrating trauma- and resilience-informed care into primary care settings.

At CCHE, we see equity as an outcome we hope to achieve and integral to how we practice evaluation. This commitment is never more important than in explicitly equity-focused initiatives, which we define as investments with explicit goals of addressing structural inequities and reducing disparities. Our work includes: 

• Thought-partnering to articulate how an investment will promote equity
• Understanding the context of historical and structural oppression and trauma
• Ensuring diverse perspectives in evaluation planning, data collection, analysis, and reporting – including those intended to benefit from the investment
• Encouraging the ongoing use of data to understand and act on disparities and inequities 

Promoting ongoing learning is at the heart of our evaluation work. It's probably not surprising that evaluating efforts to build capacity and foster collective learning is an area where we shine. Whether these activities are elements of broader initiatives or stand-alone initiatives, we:

• Provide real-time feedback for funders and organizations seeking to strengthen their capacity, competencies and skills.
• Serve as strategic partners for learning collaboratives from design through evaluation. We use both standardized and tailored tools to assess and improve collaborative performance.
• Provide evaluation technical assistance and coaching to support organizations in doing their own evaluations. We bring a wealth of knowledge about strategically establishing appropriate infrastructure, practices, and resources to sustain growth.

One of the most powerful tools for change is the ability to impact the systems and policies that define entire communities. However, evaluating the impact of broad, complex initiatives can be challenging because these initiatives have content with far more dynamic and fluid situations that are difficult to untangle. As an evaluation partner, CCHE emphasizes:

• Using tools and frameworks to strategically identify what stakeholders want the initiative to accomplish and how to measure progress made along the way. For example, CCHE's policy spectrum allows us to assess changes in the policy environment and tangible outcomes.
• Leveraging our collaboration model to help community members, organizations, and funders demystify effective collaboration and identify collaboratives' role in achieving system change.
• Partnering with groups collaborating in new ways to address systemic problems such as structural racism, environmental justice, income inequality, gentrification and displacement, and chronic disease.