The Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions (TECCHI) at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St. Michael's Hospital has been established to address a gap in the Canadian and Ontario evaluation community, in essence to be a centre of excellence in evaluation.  The focus of the Centre will be on the evaluation of a variety of policy and programmatic interventions, all of which have the ambition of improving health outcomes. The growing focus on learning and accountability in Canada and internationally has resulted in an increasing need for evaluation approaches  to understand and assess if policies and programs work, how they work, and what can be done in planning and implementation to make them work.  Given the complexity of some of the health policies and programs, the designs and approaches required to evaluate them need to go beyond standard clinical trials and often will involve the evaluator working with the policymakers and program planners right at the formulation stages.

We aim to ensure that health programs and policies at the local, provincial, and international levels are better able to achieve intended health outcomes due to the integration of evaluation feedback mechanisms.  The Evaluation Centre is at the forefront of building a strategic network of Canadian and international evaluators.

The Evaluation Centre contributes to an enhanced learning and accountability culture for improving health outcomes in Ontario, Canada and internationally. We work with health policy makers, program planners and implementers in Ontario, Canada and internationally to integrate evaluation approaches and evaluative thinking to more comprehensively understand the impacts of policy and programmatic interventions.  Ultimately, such an evaluative culture contributes to strengthened health systems and improved health outcomes in Ontario, Canada and internationally.

The Evaluation Centre contributes to health policy making in Ontario through innovations in evaluation methodologies and approaches, policy forums and think tanks, enhancing evaluation culture through summer schools targeted at health practitioners, and working collaboratively with policy makers and practitioners to enhance the likelihood that policies have their intended outcomes.