Goals and Feedback

The degree to which goals are clearly communicated, acted upon, and fed back to staff and alignment of that feedback with goals [1][2][3]. The Chronic Care Model emphasizes the importance of relying on multiple methods of evaluation and feedback including clinical, performance, and economic evaluations and experience [4]. An important feature of many individual behavior change models is setting goals and receiving feedback on progress [5]. A recent review found that effects of using audit and feedback mechanisms to improve practices resulted in small to moderate effects [6]. However, studies showed wide variation of effects and little is known about appropriate methods. In addition, nothing was said about how those audit and feedback methods aligned with larger organizational mission and goals. Stakeholders cannot take corrective action without sufficient feedback that is tightly coupled with goals that are important to them [7]. Goal setting provides a benchmark that allows people to assess whether or not the intervention is creating value [6]. Less aggressive incremental goals [6] and goals that are specific and attainable [1] will increase implementation effectiveness. Leadership commitment, involvement, and accountability are key features for successful implementation (see Leadership Engagement). Among the most effective ways to engage that support is to have a change effort that is aligned with and contributes to achieving the organizational goals of leadership [3]. Support from leaders is more likely if they are kept involved in and informed about the implementation [8]. A sense of collective responsibility is thought to contribute to implementation success along with a communal understanding of mission and goals and the sense that task decisions are made based on them [2]. The Chronic Care Model emphasizes the importance of relying on multiple methods of evaluation and feedback including clinical, performance, economic evaluations, and experience [9][10].