Phase 1: Convene Team Members and Determine Assessment Activities

Why Phase 1 Matters

CDC award recipients must collaborate with health system and clinic leadership, providers, and staff members to conduct assessments and develop relevant implementation plans for each evidence-based intervention. Your staff and partners may already be collaborating. If so, you will need to determine who will contribute to the needs assessment and in what ways. Activities are listed sequentially in an order that was logical for most Colorectal Cancer Control Program (CRCCP) recipients. In this phase, you will determine which activities make sense for your team and clinic setting.

Phase 1 Activities

Complete these activities to convene a readiness assessment team and determine assessment activities.

1.1 Adapt Phase 1–4 Activities Checklist for Your Setting

1.2 Establish Your Team

1.3 Convene Your Team

1.1 Adapt Phase 1-4 Activities Checklist for Your Setting

Download the Field Guide Phases 1–4 Activities Checklist [PDF-145KB] so you can review and adapt tasks and activities for each of the four phases as needed. This checklist will help guide you in establishing a team. Work with your team to refine and finalize the activities for your own checklist, which will be the foundation for Phases 2–4 of the readiness assessment process. Tailor the activities to your setting as you plan your readiness assessment.

1.2 Establish Your Team

The people on your team should have—

• Knowledge about cancer screening tests, clinic workflows, and clinical processes.
• Knowledge about clinic data systems or electronic health records.
• A commitment to support and institutionalizing policies and practices that promote cancer screening, including readiness assessment completion. This person may be called a screening champion.
• Experience in assessment, planning, evaluation, and quality assurance, or quality improvement.

Types of Team Members

Recipient and clinic staff involved in the assessment differ by setting. The activities relevant to your setting for each assessment phase should guide your determination of who should be involved in each phase. Use the information in this activity to help you determine team members’ roles.

• CDC award recipient staff and other experts generally include the program manager, quality improvement practice coach, evaluators with data expertise, and content experts. These team members will typically be responsible or accountable across all stages as they develop and administer the readiness assessment and analyze and share data with clinic partners.
• Clinic staff involved in the assessment typically include the medical director, quality improvement specialist, clinic manager, nursing staff, and information technology (IT) staff. They help complete the assessment, analyze and review findings, interpret the results, and develop an implementation plan.
• CDC program consultants and evaluation team are available to provide technical assistance to recipients.

1.3 Convene Your Team

After you have identified the activities relevant to your setting, it is helpful to bring your team members together. When you meet, you can review the goals and requirements of the readiness assessment, discuss, and agree on activities for each phase, and specify each team member’s role.

Responsibility Assignment Matrix

A responsibility assignment matrix [PDF-150KB] may help you articulate members’ level of responsibility. The matrix is based on the Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI) Framework and has been adapted to conduct readiness assessments for cancer screening interventions. It can be used as a starting point for identifying and bringing together the individuals relevant to conducting readiness assessments in your setting. The matrix may be particularly practical for screening efforts, as it can help all team members understand the screening processes, implementation of evidence-based interventions, and how the team will work with each other to complete each activity. Use the matrix to guide all subsequent phases. Refer to it often and revise as needed throughout the process.

As a team, you will also want to review the overall goals of the CRCCP and the readiness assessment so all team members understand how the process can help your program contribute to achieving the CRCCP goals. Additional details and program-specific readiness assessment guidance can be found in the CRCCP Manual. Only CRCCP recipients can access the manual.

To finalize the responsibility assignment matrix, we suggest the following process.

1. CDC recipient staff agree on activities for Phases 2–4.
2. CDC recipient staff meet with clinic leadership to—
   • Review the proposed activities.
   • Decide where revisions may be needed on the Phase 1-4 Activities Checklist. [PDF-145KB]
   • Define recipient and clinic team member roles for each activity.

Use the responsibility assignment matrix to assign team members to be responsible for, accountable for, consulted on, or informed about decisions or activities.

Responsibility Assignment Matrix Role Definitions

• Responsible: Team members who complete activities. Different team members can be assigned different responsibility for different activities.
• Accountable: Team member who ensures activities are completed. This person delegates activities, reviews the team’s work, and signs off on each activity’s completion. The recipient CRCCP Program Director will likely serve as the accountable team member.
• Consulted: Team members who provide insight or feedback on activities.
• Informed: Team members who need progress updates. These team members are generally not directly involved in completing activities.