TRACKING AND EVALUATION CORE The Tracking and Evaluation (T&E) Key Component Activity (KCA) provides LA CaTS Center leadership with actionable evaluations to facilitate data-driven decisions for shaping initiatives and directing resources to impact areas aligned with the Center's mission and theme. Before receiving funding in 2012, most LA CaTS Center KCAs existed primarily on paper and were not yet functioning. When the Center received funding four years ago, a tracking plan was in place within the first month of ramp-up that focused on: (a) ensuring effective cross-institutional and cross-KCA communication; (b) monitoring progress of all 10 KCAs, including the implementation of pilot grant and education trainee programs; and, (c) identifying challenges for KCAs, which Center leadership addressed. Among T&E achievements to-date are the analyses and recommendations that lead to (a) the implementation of a web-based request-for-services system that increased KCA efficiencies to provide services and ability to collect metric data recommended by our External Advisory Committee; (b) increased compliance among investigators for acknowledging the LA CaTS Center in publications; and, (c) executing successful Center-wide awareness-raising and marketing strategies. In year 4 of the initial funding cycle, Center leadership agreed that tracking and evaluation activities needed independence, and provided the necessary resources to ?spin off? the T&E function, which now serves as a separate KCA. For the second five-year funding round, the T&E Core will support the LA CaTS Center's overarching goal to improve health outcomes and address disparities in Louisiana by collecting useful data and providing the PI with evaluations so leadership can determine progress, identify new opportunities or challenges and make adjustments to programmatic initiatives. The T&E Core will work with all KCAs to develop metrics, then ensure documentation and performance measurement. In addition to an annual evaluation, we work with the Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core, Biomedical Informatics Core as well as other KCAs on innovations such as: a web accessible dashboard to provide timely data trends and metric analytics; and, collaboration visualizations. The T&E Core proposes the following three Specific Aims: 1) To execute an internal tracking and evaluation plan that ensures ongoing monitoring and informative interim assessments at both the KCA- level and Center-wide level for both new and continuing initiatives; 2) To expand existing tools and continue to develop or implement innovative approaches for collecting and capturing data, tracking progress, enhancing collaborations, and providing analyses for identifying or enhancing organizational strengths; and, 3) To oversee an annual evaluation at the Center-level and KCA-level that includes assessing services structure and delivery; budget implementation; resource allocation; and, demand, function, utilization and effectiveness of each KCA to inform the PI and Program Coordinators who make course adjustments if necessary.
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