Achieving a Policy Change: Evaluation Results from Round 2 (2004-2006) of the Clinic Consortia Policy and Advocacy Program

In 2004, The Endowment refunded 18 California clinic consortia for a second three-year funding cycle to continue policy advocacy activities and improve the quality and financial stability of their member clinics. The Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has continued its evaluation of these activities by conducting interviews with grantees and partner organizations and collecting data for longitudinal measures used since 2001. In addition, UCSF developed three policy advocacy case studies detailing grantee involvement in three policy issues, as well as 17 best practice case studies describing exemplary grantee activities that speak to the achievement of individual grantee and program outcomes. In this presentation, we describe the evaluation results of the second funding cycle for the years 2004-2006 and discuss the implications for advocates, funders and evaluators. The evaluation findings indicate that individually and collectively, grantees are achieving not only short-term outcomes, such as increased policymaker awareness of safety net and clinic policy issues, but also longer-term outcomes including increased access to care and improved health outcomes for targeted populations. Though there are annual differences, the longitudinal data on funding and policy advocacy activities points to sustained effort and continued gains to clinics during uncertain times. Clearly, clinic consortia are key agents of change in their communities.