Edmonton, AB – April 19, 2023
Health Cities, a non-profit organization committed to promoting innovative solutions to improve health outcomes and economic growth in Alberta’s healthcare sector, is pleased to launch a new initiative aimed at improving the delivery of social services using data and technology.
In the first phase of the project, named the Edmonton Community Data Warehouse, Health Cities partnered with PolicyWise for Children & Families, an Alberta-based organization with industry-leading expertise in evaluating policies and programs, and creating processes to analyze data for organizations serving children, youth, families, and communities. The integration of key data was done in partnership with the project working group, comprised of six Edmonton-based social services agencies:
- Bissell Centre
- Boyle Street Community Services
- Canadian Mental Health Association
- IslamicFamily
- Mustard Seed
- Seniors Association of Greater Edmonton (SAGE)
This transformative project can improve the capacity for social service organizations to collect, organize and analyze data – a critical first step to better serving client populations in Edmonton and across Alberta. The collective power of the information allows agencies to better understand the populations they serve, assess changes in those populations over time and advocate, as one, for policy outcomes to address shortcomings.
PolicyWise’s experience and knowledge was instrumental in assisting the working group to assess their current data environment, and establish effective pathways for collecting and managing safe, meaningful and useful data.
“This is an important collaboration to build data capacity across the Alberta social sector,” said Jody Wolfe, Research and Policy Manager at PolicyWise for Children & Families. “We are excited to embark on this new venture and committed to working closely with our partners to make a real difference in our communities using our Build Better Data tools.”
Read the full article here.
