Lessons Learned: Onward and Upward

Posted by randerson on August 17th, 2023 Posted in: Blog, Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Newsletter, Thought Leadership

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Another season of yearly kickoff meetings has concluded. This process of preparing and presenting our annual kickoff presentation is always a highly motivating activity for the NNLM National Evaluation Center (NEC). We thoroughly enjoy getting together to discuss as a group our daily work, our accomplishments, and, perhaps not surprisingly given our line of work and shared commitment to continuous improvement, we particularly welcome the opportunity to ponder on lessons learned. This year was no exception. 

As you can see in the infographic included in this newsletter, grant year (GY) 2 presented the opportunity for several outstanding collaborations with our ROC partners, including the Personas and Member Survey initiatives. NEC deliberately sought to bring evaluation and data visualization more directly to broader audiences, namely through the Data Viz Challenge and the introduction of a standard survey for NNLM subawardees’ use (PAS-SUB). Similarly, we continue to work to make our processes more inclusive and accessible (i.e. el PAS en Español) in line with the NNLM mission. Even with these successes, we aim to continuously improve and have identified two areas where we believe we have opportunities to enhance our efforts: Communications and Output Uptake.

Communications

During NEC GY2, communications played a more central role than in the previous year. It is both logical and expected given the dramatic increase in our interactions (see the metrics on support requests processed!) and the expansion of our workload and engagement with the network. All organizations struggle with communications, and we share this challenge with other industries and organizations. In a recent Harris Poll on the “State of Business Communications 2023”, business leaders reported that despite an increase in communications (9% year over year), the effectiveness of those efforts has waned (by as much as 12%). GY2 taught us that our communications can improve, including to, from, within, and across NNLM and ROCs. There are many reasons why change is needed and how to approach it. In GY3, NEC will be tackling our communications in a manner that is diversified, consistent, and constant. We’ll keep working to improve communications and ask that you keep the feedback coming, we are always grateful to those who share it with us! 

Output Uptake 

Our second insight pertains to uptake or utilization rates of NEC outputs. During GY2, in response to a Network request, NEC developed and released Tableau Dashboards for each of the ROCs using the NNLM Training Survey. Although the Dashboards were very well received when first announced, they have been underutilized. Fortunately, our ROC colleagues have made their voices heard, and we have listened. As stated in our Kickoff presentation, this year we will come back to you with more targeted trainings, improved dashboards, and related general-public communications materials. Stay tuned for more details over the coming months in our newsletters, emails, and in our regular Evaluation Working Group meetings.

Finally, the NEC team would like to wholeheartedly thank all of our NNLM friends and colleagues for their hard work and dedication. We also want to thank NNLM members and community organizations who inspire us and keep us focused on our ultimate goal: to improve public health and access to biomedical information for all. We are excited to work with you to make GY3 the best year yet!