Blog Post 4-Amy Spear

This week we discussed heavily the topic of program evaluation. We defined program as "the use of social research procedures to systematically investigate the effectiveness of social intervention programs to assess whether the desired results of a program have been achieved"(Program Evaluation, 2017). Program evaluation is vital in meeting the needs of the program, patient, and provider. Program evaluation serves to follow the progression of programs, manage budgets, and ultimately to show program success .

We also discussed the use of the Program Logic Model(PLM). It is a flowchart that illustrates the sequencing of events  as well as the various components of a program and the relationship between these components. What this model does is it shows the connections between the treatments that contribute to the need of the program within a community, the activities that will address these conditions, and then the outcome that is expected from the practice of these activities. Looking closer at the model, we can see that there are various inputs that include components of what was invested in the program. These things may include staff, volunteers, equipment, and money. The next step in the model is looking at what the program is outputting. Considering this, we think about what was done and who was impacted. Activities such as counselling, training, or workshops can take place throughout the program and each different program can reach out to a specific demographic. Then after this, we can observe the outcomes of our program. What do we see the program has done in short term and then overtime, how has it had an affect on the targeted group overall.

As a prospective health care professional, I believe that in the future we will be more readily utilizing e-mental health services; therefore,I will discuss a program that has already been implemented. Lantern is a web-based and mobile-based portal that combines Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques along with help from clinicians. Their aim is to help lessen the affects of depression and anxiety on the lives of those who are diagnosed(GoLantern, 2014). We can use this application as an example to see how these founders could have used the PLM in implementing their program. When we consider this program, we can say that the inputs for the program were most likely clinicians such as psychiatrists or psychologists to help provide feedback for patients. They would have invested money and materials to create their online program.  As far as outputs, we can look at what is being done with the program. We can see that the clinicians are counseling users in a way to get their anxiety and depression under control. They are also utilizing initial patient assessments in order to learn more about their disorder and how to treat it. The application is clearly targeting individuals who are struggling with problems like anxiety and depression in an attempt to help patients gain emotional strength and well-being. Their short term goals are to provide awareness and also inform patients of their services. Overall, their long term goal is to ultimately eliminate the stress on patients lives from dealing with their disorder and to provide an easy, cost-effective way to treat them. Moreover, this program could implement quantitative tools such as surveys or discussion among users to test the effectiveness of their program.

As we can see, the PLM and four step model are very simple and effective models that can be used in creating programs and then evaluating them. It is important the e-mental programs use program evaluation to make changes if needed and watch their program flourish.