Implementing Telecare
Establish monitoring and evaluation methods

As the early implementation proceeds, the project team needs to establish regular reporting structures, to guide decisions on the present project, and on whether and how it can be extended to other areas. This relates the outcomes of the early implementation to the broader project terms of reference. Monitoring progress helps to:

• Check progress towards intended outcomes;
• Identify areas of difficulty so that they can decide if they need to act to keep the project on track
• Identify any possible implications for other projects
• Learn lessons about project management and approaches that may be useful in future projects.

Review and monitoring is not a narrow, technical process but one which needs to take account of people, the setting, and timing but is useful to set within a systematic reporting structure. Review and evaluation has four stages:

1. Establishing outcomes – what are we aiming to achieve?

The process starts at the beginning of a project, when the team establishes the outcomes. Earlier activities in the Guide (see Sections 3.3 and 4.3) have provided this starting point – the outcomes of the project should be expressed in such a way that progress towards them can be measured.

2. Monitoring tools – how will we assess progress?

In this step the project team decides what information it will use to monitor progress, and how it will collect it. A strong monitoring approach would include elements of all of the following:

• Personal observation
• Quantitative and qualitative data (statistics or opinion surveys)
• Existing or specially created information systems

3. Comparing - actual outcomes with intended outcomes.

There is bound to be some variation between actual and intended outcomes - and if this is significant then those responsible will also be searching for possible reasons, so that they can design a suitable response or revise an approach.

4. Correcting – acting to close the gap.

The project team decides how best to bring actual outcomes close to those that were intended; or acknowledges that the actual outcomes, although not anticipated, are a good replacement for those originally identified.

Two important points:

Timing affects the usefulness of the process. While a formal monitoring and evaluation is required at the end of a project, it is extremely useful to project managers if they plan for regular feedback and review throughout, as they can then take corrective action early enough. It can be problematic if feedback from monitoring and evaluation is left to the end because the project team is effectively working blind.

The period for review should not be overwhelming – it need not be time consuming or restrict time available to implement telecare. A balance of effort is required.

Remember also that people react to monitoring and evaluation processes: they are more likely to respond positively if they understand the reason for them, and see that the design of the process is efficient and effective, and suits the situation.

Consider internal and external monitoring, weighing up benefits and issues associated with doing it in-house (internal monitoring) against demonstrating independence (external monitoring).