Evaluation Tools for a Medical Respite Program

Ronald McDonald House New York (RMH-NY), founded in 1979, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing temporary housing and wraparound services to families with children ages 0 to 26 undergoing cancer treatment. RMH-NY recently explored launching a new program offering short-term residential care for young women aged 18-26 who are currently experiencing housing insecurity and require short-term medical care. Recognizing that housing instability often leads to worse health outcomes, the Capstone team was tasked with developing tools to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of this service model. The team conducted a landscape assessment of medical respite program evaluations, developed evaluation tools, and began implementing the program evaluation with baseline staff interviews. While this specific program is not moving forward, the team developed an evaluation toolkit to support future RMH-NY initiatives targeting social determinants of health as well as mental and behavioral health needs. The toolkit includes an intake assessment, bi-weekly check-in surveys, a mid-point patient survey, a baseline/mid-point staff assessment, and a discharge survey.