Using Your Data to Support Decision Making State AT Program Leadership Symposium March 24-27, 2019 Liaison Capital Hill, Washington, DC

Know Your Data Be inquisitive about your data Understand your data Be able to explain variations or trends in your data to your advisory council, subcontractors, stakeholders, program officer, TA providers, etc. Use critical thinking to analyze data before drawing conclusions; avoid subjective value judgements Assure reliable, accurate data and use it to support programmatic decisions Use data-driven decision-making to support programmatic activities, to build partnerships and collaborations, and to seek other sources of funding

Data Comparisons Comparing your State data to the national aggregate data or to other states can be informative but use caution as you draw conclusions Many variables influence each program including: Different levels of AT Act funding Program structure State geographical size State population Leveraged funding Program leadership, efforts, and area of emphasis over time Expertise and capacity of staff Partnerships, collaborations, and other state resources

Device Lending Challenge #1:  Your Advisory Council member representing VR wants to know how many representatives of employment borrowed over the last 3 years. Challenge #2:  You are trying to determine whether there is a particular group of stakeholders (consumers, family members, representatives of employment, etc.) you should focus on in the next state plan, to increase their utilization of your loan program.  Generate a chart or table examining trend data over the last 5 years to provide you with this information. What did you learn?

Device Lending Challenge #3:  Find out if the technology changes brought about by the introduction of tablets (about 2012) impacted the number of loans in the category of speech communication.   Challenge #4: Compare your state to another state that makes a similar overall number of total loans.  What did you find out? Challenge #5:  You have received a state appropriation of $100,000 to increase your loans for community living.  Review the national data of device loans by category of device and compare this with the percentages of loans your program makes in each category.  How might this influence your allocation of new purchases? 

Device Demonstration Challenge #1:  Looking at the last six years of data, what is the average number of participants per demonstration conducted in your state? Challenge #2: How did your demonstration program’s percentage of participants by type compare with national data for last year?

Device Demonstration Challenge #3: Which types of AT are the three most frequently demonstrated in your program? What factors account for that? Challenge #4:  Has the level of consumer satisfaction with your demonstration services changed over time (2015-2017)? What % of decrease in satisfaction would give you cause for concern? Can you explain any decrease/increase in satisfaction?

Training Inquiry Run a custom chart for the past five years for your state and examine Training Participants by type of targeted population What conclusions might you reach with just a cursory look? Would your conclusions possibly be different with a more thoughtful analysis? How does your state compare to the 2017 aggregate APR data for training? Run a custom table for your state for the past eight years on Training Topics Look at the general variances over this time period Take a closer look at the AT information tech/telecom access topic and Transition topic Does a historical view on training participants by type and/or topic provide information that should be considered in planning future trainings?

Explore your Data Choose other State Level activities and/or National aggregate data to run some reports What did you discover that will require more thorough investigation? Identify one question you would have for another state based on your results Questions? Suggestions?