National Evaluation of the Healthy Communities Access Program (HCAP)
For the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), NORC conducted a two-phase national evaluation of HCAP, including a Report to Congress on whether the program has met its goals and objectives. The evaluation has drawn upon a number of quantitative and qualitative data sources. In the first phase, NORC conducted analyses of grantee progress reports, in-depth interviews with selected consortia leaders, focus groups with consortia patients in disease management programs, and designed two surveys of consortia leaders and provider partners. In the second phase, the surveys were analyzed, interviews were conducted with grantees in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to understand how the systems implemented with HCAP funds supported local emergency response, and an in-depth analysis of selected grantee activities was conducted followed by site visits to particularly successful grantees. The activities examined were: electronic health records, plans for covering the uninsured, shared eligibility-enrollment systems, initiatives to reduce inappropriate emergency department use, and patient navigator programs. A Report to Congress was submitted in Phase 1 and a final evaluation report was prepared and submitted to HRSA.