In this year of the Five-Year Title V Needs Assessment, we are all thinking of how to collect and examine information about capacity and infrastructure; population needs and disparities; and desired outcomes all families, inclusive of women, infants, children, adolescents, and youth, with and without special health care needs. Much of 2024 will be spent determining priority goals, developing action plans, and allocating funds. You can access the resources at MCHneeds.net to learn more about the full needs assessment process. But looking ahead, we know that many of you are already thinking ahead to how to choose new programs or adapt current projects to meet the evolving needs of your populations, as identified by the needs assessment.
The Hexagon Discussion and Analysis Tool is an evidence-based resource to learn about now so you can use it when you're ready to move from assessment to action. This edition of MCHwork focuses on how to use this tool and how it can support your equity work immediately following the needs assessment process. Our hope is that presenting this resource early, you will have a chance to learn more about the tool and dig deeper to add it to your professional toolbox. Remember to come back to the Hexagon Tool — and to this microlearning page — when you're ready to strategize on the findings from your needs assessment.
The Hexagon Tool helps organizations evaluate new and existing programs and practices. This tool is designed to be used by a team to ensure diverse perspectives are represented in a discussion of six factors to help you figure out if a program will fit within your work and have impact on your key populations.
The Hexagon Tool can be used at any point as you are implementing a program to determine its "fit" with the local context. Will this program work in your department along with all the other work that you're doing? Will it have an effect on the population as a whole? Will it help decrease disparities with groups that need help the most? It is most commonly used during the period when your team is identifying possible new programs or practices to implement (the "exploration phase.")
MCHwork provides a jump start to thinking creatively about "finding the fit" with evidence-based programs through a Ready-Set-Go approach. Use the following resources to start your learning, dig deeper, and move from knowledge to practice.
The Hexagon Tool can at first seem complicated. But these are the basic questions it's asking.
Questions to ask about the program you're thinking about implementing:
Questions to ask about your team and the surrounding work infrastructure:
Watch these three videos from the Evidence-Based Decision Making Core of the National MCH Workforce Development Center to gain an understanding of how to use the Hexagon Tool to align new or existing evidence-based programs into your current work. Download presentation slides and transcripts for all three presentations.
In this video, we explain the six parts (the "indicators") of the Hexagon Tool to see if a program you're considering will be impactful.
In the second video of the series, we dive deeper into how to work through and score the actual tool, from ensuring that diverse perspectives are at the table, information is gathered equitably, indicators are scored thoughtfully, and open discussions occur along the way.
In the final video in the series, we focus on how the Hexagon Tool can prompt teams to consider potential impact of the program being considered and whether it has the ability to advance equitable outcomes.
Resources from the MCH Navigator. Use these resources to dig deeper into the specifics of using program funds more effectively:
Start here with this video: The Hexagon: An Exploration Tool — An Introduction to a Package of Resources to Support Using the Hexagon Tool in Practice. Developed: 2023. Source: NHS Education for Scotland. Presenter(s). Marita Bracht and Allison Metz. Type: Recorded Presentation. Level: Intermediate. Length: 28 minutes.
Resources from the MCH Digital Library. Use these resources to understand how to implement what you've learned:
Start here with this resource: Farmer S. So, We Did the Hexagon Tool. Now What? 2022. State Implementation and Scaling-Up of Evidence-Based Practices. This article provides a case study to show the innovative nature of asking the questions in the Hexagon Tool as an innovative way to choose programs with real potential to have impact.