Postcards from the people: a dialogue model for community needs assessment

TL;DRAbstract

There is a growing focus in rural and regional health care on ensuring that priority setting and
\nplanning is based on democratic processes and formal community needs assessments. The latter,
\nhowever, can pose major technical, logistical and resource issues for small rural health services. The
\npaper reports on the trialling of an alternate approach to the major periodic needs assessment based on
\nestablishing a formal process of continuous open dialogue between services and their communities.
\nThe model consists of three elements: a ‘postcard’ data collection system, a data management and
\naction system, and a feedback dissemination model.
\nThe postcard data collection is designed to systematise and formalise the capture of what would
\nnormally be called ‘anecdotal’ data. That is, comment that arises informally and spontaneously in the
\ncourse of day-to-day community interactions, especially those around service delivery encounters.
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