Preventing frail and elderly hospital admissions: developing an evaluation framework for the "closer to home" quality improvement programme in NHS Forth Valley

'Closer to Home' is a co-ordinated programme in NHS Forth Valley aiming to improve the provision of community care for frail and older people at increased risk of unscheduled hospital admission. Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of such initiatives is essential towards shaping policies and optimising elderly care provision in the community. This paper underlines the early stages of the development of a data-analytics evaluation framework for "Closer to Home," incorporating all dimensions of the RE-AIM model for evaluating public health impact in health promotion interventions. The evaluation framework currently consists in: (1) understanding and documenting the context, (2) identifying the range of relevant data, (3) identifying outcomes and performance measures, and (4) synthesising all of the above into a coherent evaluation of the effectiveness of the programme. The purpose of this paper is to share our experience of the challenges and opportunities which arise in the early stages of developing a multi-faceted quality improvement programme evaluation framework.