Date: Sunday, March 22, 2026
Hi! We’re Reagan Pearce and Hope Gilbert, evaluators with Deloitte’s Evaluation and Research for Action Center of Excellence. We bring a combined 35 years of experience across federal and philanthropic health evaluations. We want to share some practical ways we stay relevant, find meaning, and build resilience as health evaluation continues to evolve in 2026.
Lately, we’ve seen health-sector evaluations shaped by faster decision cycles and more complex implementation contexts, where clinical teams, community partners, and program leaders are adapting and collecting information in real time. In response, we’re often using tools like automation, artificial intelligence, and virtual technical assistance to enhance our practice, but human-centered judgment remains integral to key evaluation activities like identifying relevant evaluation questions, right-sizing decision-making rigor, and translating findings into actionable next steps. For us, staying resilient in 2026 includes intentional choices about questions, rigor, and tracking and communicating change as it happens.
In health evaluation, faster decision cycles and shifting leadership priorities can turn an evaluation into an “answer everything” request, especially when clinical teams, community partners, and program leaders all need something slightly different. To be more targeted, we can first anchor on the decision that’s coming up (and what will change because of it) and then shape our evaluation questions and methodologies.
Before designing any evaluation plan, we align stakeholders on: (1) outlining guiding policies and decisions, roles, and responsibilities, (2) identifying available metrics for economy of scale, and (3) anticipating risk(s) and planning for mitigation. That can make it easier to identify targeted evaluation questions, pick fit-for-purpose methods, and remain transparent regarding feasibility. In practice, this approach helps us avoid overpromising while strengthening trust as clients make data-informed decisions.
As evaluators, we often see programs evolve midstream: workflows shift, staffing changes, leaders rotate, requirements change, and local context matters. If we wait until the end of an engagement lifecycle to ask implementation and sustainability questions, we could risk reporting results without a clear narrative that links implementation, outcomes, and recommendations. Promoting agility in our practice affords us the capacity for ongoing course-corrections across the lifecycle of our evaluation activities.
When the context is moving fast, we keep a simple running log that captures the following: what changed, why it changed, and what it means for synthesis of findings into actionable and meaningful next steps. This shared live document promotes engagement with our clients to help them validate their story, learn from pivots, and implement change. In turn, this simple practice helps us stay credible with our clients as we support them with real-time findings and strategic mitigation plans.
The field of health evaluation is constantly changing. As public health, translational science, and clinical-community programs move faster and operate in more complex environments, our roles and responsibilities as evaluators remain deeply rooted with the human-led decisions and subject matter specialization we bring to each engagement. When we’re intentional about the evaluation questions we prioritize, the rigor we right-size to the moment, and the ongoing ways we communicate findings (and what to do next), we remain relevant with our clients, secure client buy-in to the evaluation process and build resilience in our own careers.
Need a Rad Resource for designing evaluations that keep pace with quick timelines and shifting context? Check out Rapid Cycle Evaluation at a Glance from the Administration for Children and Families for a practical primer on iterative, decision-driven evaluation.
Question: What are you doing to remain relevant and resilient in 2026 as an evaluator? We’d love to hear your tips!
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Health Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the Health Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our Health Evaluation TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.