Providing Transparency and Accountability to the People of Vermont

What They’re Saying

“From the standpoint of public health as a field, the focus is always on the population.  It has, therefore, not been a great leap for us to incorporate a new tool that helps us track data and make decisions with regard to all of our major strategic initiatives across all sectors. The Scorecard is an integral part of our ability to display and share across our network and assists programs to gauge their own progress toward achieving our population goals. The Scorecard also aligns well with the RBA framework we utilize to prompt data-driven decision-making. We encourage all of our program managers and leaders to use the Scorecard to help them make decisions – using the data and the narrative to tell their story – and, as a web-based solution, the Scorecard provides an opportunity to communicate consistently with partners – in and out of the state government”. 

The Story Behind the Case

Clear Impact Scorecard helps the Vermont Department of Health provide transparency and accountability to the people of Vermont.

The Healthy Vermonters 2020 initiative uses the Results-Based Accountability approach to document the health status of the state’s residents and define the Results the Department of Health intends to achieve by the end of the decade. The Clear Impact Scorecard enables the health department to share with the public live, real-time scorecards that capture all of this information through the Healthy Vermonters Toolkit on their website.

More than 100 intended Results are identified in the plan within the following focus areas:

Each intended Result is monitored by a number of Population Indicators – measures for which the health department, with state government and community partners, share responsibility for making change. (E.g. Smoking prevalence among Vermont Residents) All Healthy Vermonters 2020 indicators are available for the public to see via the Clear Impact Scorecard.

Vermont is now utilizing Clear Impact Scorecard to track data and communicate progress toward its Healthy Vermonters 2030 goals. These new Scorecards contain statewide data for 48 indicators spanning 12 focus areas. You can learn more and view each Scorecard at the Healthy Vermonters 2030 webpage.

What They’re Doing About It

Defining the Results Vermont wants to achieve and the indicators to monitor them is only half the battle – Clear Impact Scorecard also helps the Department of Health collect and share performance data for the programs and services in place to help achieve those Results.

Each scorecard in the Healthy Vermonters Toolkit also contains information on the programs that the Health Department has in place to help achieve the intended Results and a set of Performance Measures for that program. Performance Measures are measures for which the Health Department programs are responsible for the performance of interventions that, over time, will improve health, as reflected in the population indicators (such as reduced smoking prevalence). (E.g. Percentage of smokers registered with the Vermont Quit Network)

Performance Measures are designed specifically for each program, and aim to communicate:

• How much the program is doing ;
• How well it is doing it; and
• If anyone is better off.

By collecting and sharing this information with the public via the Clear Impact Scorecard, the Vermont Department of Health has identified itself as a leader in the new culture of accountability and transparency that is growing among government agencies.

Sailing to Good Health with the Vermont e-SHIP

To fulfill its commitment to continuous improvement, transparency, and accountability, Vermont uses Clear Impact Scorecard to build, manage, and share its State Health Improvement Plan in an electronic format (e-SHIP).

Vermont is one of a growing number of health departments around the country that has digitized their community/state/tribal/neighborhood health improvement plan using the Clear Impact Scorecard. The Scorecard provides Vermont with an online performance dashboard that helps them track health indicators, speak to the story behind health trends, and showcase what they’re doing to improve. It allows them to link together Indicators and Performance Measures and group them into topic areas.

With the software, Vermont shares its e-SHIP scorecard publicly on its website so that visitors can get an overview of strategies and planned interventions designed to impact health priorities. By collecting and sharing this information with the public via the Clear Impact Scorecard, the Vermont Department of Health has identified itself as a leader in the new culture of accountability and transparency that is growing among government agencies.

You can learn more about the Vermont e-SHIP here or view it on the web.

One of the First States to be Nationally Accredited by PHAB

On June 19, 2014, Health Commissioner Harry Chen, MD, announced the news that Vermont had become one of the first five state health departments to receive national public health accreditation. The accreditation process has challenged the Health Department to think critically about how it works to protect and promote the health of Vermonters. It allows them to identify processes where improvements are needed, and it has given them the opportunity to strengthen their culture of continuous quality improvement.

Clear Impact Scorecard helps Vermont fulfill PHAB’s performance management system requirement. Community health assessments and improvement plans are also important prerequisites for PHAB accreditation. Vermont uses Clear Impact Scorecard to organize and share its State Health Improvement Plan scorecard publicly on its website so that visitors can get an overview of strategies and planned interventions designed to impact health priorities.