The Policy Process, Part II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Policy Process, Part II - Essay Example Policy evaluation can be limited to the long term care policy to give a vivid explanation and meaning of policy evaluation. First is the assessment or judgment of quality, program effectiveness and impact of the policy. As a health care policy, the best judges on the quality of the program would be healthcare recipients. For this reason, an effective quality evaluation can be undertaken by implementing a quality assurance system. Preferably, the quality assurance system should e external; meaning that the assessment should be done by stakeholders outside the policy implementation process. A suitable example will be patients. In a pilot survey research, patients who receive treatment under the long-term care policy can be made to give their impression on the quality of the policy. Data collected in this manner can be analyzed to give policy makers a fair idea of the quality of the policy. On goal attainment evaluation, this can be left with the policy makers themselves as they are the goal setters. By definition of the strategic plan that was used in drafting the policy, policy makers should be in a policy to tell whether or not the policy has reached its goal. This assessment should, however, be done based on the timelines set for the policy. ... Data collected in this manner can be analyzed to give policy makers a fair idea of the quality of the policy. On goal attainment evaluation, this can be left with the policy makers themselves as they are the goal setters. By definition of the strategic plan that was used in drafting the policy, policy makers should be in a policy to tell whether or not the policy has reached its goal. This assessment should however be done based on the timelines set for the policy. For example if it was stated that one million people must join the policy by the end of the first year, it will be easier determining if this goal has been achieved because of the timeline and quantitative measure. Finally, assessment of the cost can be done by specially employed finance experts and consultants. The consultants will judge the cost effectiveness of the policy based on the strategic plan on cost used in drawing the policy. Analysis stage The policy analysis stage is synonymous to the evaluation stage but dif ferent in one specific way. Whereas the evaluation has the strategic plan as its focus and therefore judges only on the success of the policy, the analysis takes a step further to look into the failure of the policy as well. In the policy analysis therefore, the strategic plan is not the basis for judgment but the environmental outcome – that is how best it has influenced the world around the policy or how worse it has devastated the world around the policy. In this regard, the IEA Training Manual Module 5 (2011) explains that the policy analysis â€Å"provides baseline information, points out major linkages between decisions and environmental outcomes, and provides a starting point for consideration of more sustainable policy options.† An outstanding concept at the analysis stage