Evaluation of the ‘Digital Health Ruhr Coordination Centre’

Background

On 23 September 2022, the General Assembly of the Ruhr Regional Association passed a resolution to establish a coordinating unit in the form of a coordination or networking office to promote cooperation and innovation in the field of ‘digital health’, with a view to supporting networking amongst the association’s members and ensuring the flow of information on the subject of digital health (document 14/0695). This plan was further detailed in Paper No. 14/0832. It was decided that the centre would be established on 1 July 2023, a budget was allocated to it, and its initial tasks were outlined. Since 1 July 2023, the ‘Digital Health Ruhr Coordination Centre’ – established by the Regional Association and based at project partner MedEcon Ruhr GmbH on the Bochum Health Campus – has been active as the central point of contact for all matters relating to digital health in the Ruhr Metropolis.

The Institute for Work and Technology has been commissioned to record and evaluate the achievement of objectives and the impact of the work carried out to date as part of an evaluation.

Objectives and research questions

The evaluation of the Digital Health Ruhr Coordination Office was carried out under particular time constraints. A period of just four weeks was available for the design, implementation and analysis of the evaluation. This tight timeframe limited the scope for a comprehensive evaluation in the sense of a fully-fledged scientific evaluation design, particularly with regard to the breadth of data collection, the depth of analysis and the involvement of other relevant stakeholder groups.
Against this background, the present evaluation is intended as a pragmatic yet systematic assessment which, despite the time constraints, is guided by the standards of DeGEval (the German Society for Evaluation). These standards define a recognised framework for professional evaluations based on the four key quality dimensions of usefulness, feasibility, fairness and accuracy.

Approach and methods

Approach and Methods

The criteria underpinning the evaluation focus, on the one hand, on the process level – that is, whether the programmes could be implemented in accordance with the resources, the timetable and the budget. On the other hand, they focus on the impact level – that is, whether the outcomes are commensurate with the resources deployed, and how these impacts can be described.
The evaluation design is based on a mixed-methods approach, utilising both quantitative and qualitative methods. All quantitative data used is based on data provided by the coordination office. In addition, qualitative data was collected through guided interviews with various stakeholders in the health sector (public health authorities, academia, industry), and an analysis of the digital information services was carried out.