Cambridge Health Alliance Case Study
Program Evaluation Final
Johannes Kieding
Simmons School for Social Work
Program Evaluation Final
Introduction and Background
The Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is one of the academic teaching hospitals of Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools. The hospital has many different departments, including primary care clinics, inpatient psychiatry, outpatient psychiatry, as well as specialty clinics such as the Latino, Haitian, Portuguese, and the Asian linguistic teams.
The CHA has three main locations: Somerville, Cambridge, and the Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett. From my interview with Michael Williams, LICSW and director of the outpatient psychiatry department of the CHA, I learned that originally the psychiatry department had …show more content…
It is purposive, as this method seeks out participants “on the basis of specific characteristics” (Grinnell & Gabor, 2012). It is also a non-probability method, in that not all participants have an equal chance of being selected. The specific characteristics of participants included – both the group receiving treatment and the comparison group on the waitlist -- in the evaluation are as follows: they will have a DSM-4 Axis 1 diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). What is the measurement, the instrument itself? It is the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) questionnaire. The major concepts that this instrument will focus on will have to do with changes in frequency, severity, and duration of psychiatric symptoms, and the operationalization, of course, is a change in the BSI score. But how can I operationalize the independent variable? In this way: bi-weekly individual psychotherapy -- 45 minute …show more content…
The only issue might have to do with those who do not have access to the Internet and have issues with transportation, which might make it hard to have those individuals come in to the clinic and fill out the survey by hand. Benefits to staff at the agency will be that it will boost the morale by infusing the sense that the staff is contributing to the knowledge base of science and pushing the boundaries of what we as a species know – this is quite an exciting idea! Some staff, however, may of course complain about added work, but this cannot be
Johannes Kieding
Simmons School for Social Work
Program Evaluation Final
Introduction and Background
The Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is one of the academic teaching hospitals of Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools. The hospital has many different departments, including primary care clinics, inpatient psychiatry, outpatient psychiatry, as well as specialty clinics such as the Latino, Haitian, Portuguese, and the Asian linguistic teams.
The CHA has three main locations: Somerville, Cambridge, and the Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett. From my interview with Michael Williams, LICSW and director of the outpatient psychiatry department of the CHA, I learned that originally the psychiatry department had …show more content…
It is purposive, as this method seeks out participants “on the basis of specific characteristics” (Grinnell & Gabor, 2012). It is also a non-probability method, in that not all participants have an equal chance of being selected. The specific characteristics of participants included – both the group receiving treatment and the comparison group on the waitlist -- in the evaluation are as follows: they will have a DSM-4 Axis 1 diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). What is the measurement, the instrument itself? It is the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) questionnaire. The major concepts that this instrument will focus on will have to do with changes in frequency, severity, and duration of psychiatric symptoms, and the operationalization, of course, is a change in the BSI score. But how can I operationalize the independent variable? In this way: bi-weekly individual psychotherapy -- 45 minute …show more content…
The only issue might have to do with those who do not have access to the Internet and have issues with transportation, which might make it hard to have those individuals come in to the clinic and fill out the survey by hand. Benefits to staff at the agency will be that it will boost the morale by infusing the sense that the staff is contributing to the knowledge base of science and pushing the boundaries of what we as a species know – this is quite an exciting idea! Some staff, however, may of course complain about added work, but this cannot be