What makes a produce prescription program work

A produce prescription program looks simple on paper: a partner identifies a participant, the participant receives fruits and vegetables, and the household eats better. In practice, most of the difficulty sits in the connective tissue between those steps — who makes the referral, how the participant learns what to do next, and where the food is actually picked up.

Start with the referral pathway, not the benefit

Partner organizations rarely have spare capacity for a new workflow. When a referral requires a separate login, a paper form, or a phone call that lands in a voicemail box, volume stays near zero regardless of how generous the benefit is. Amana Healthcare's approach is to design the referral around what a partner already does during an existing conversation, and to confirm in writing who is responsible for each step.

• Name the single person or role at each organization who owns referrals.
• Agree on the minimum information needed — and collect nothing beyond it.
• Give participants one clear next action written in plain language.
• Send a confirmation back to the referring partner so the loop closes.

Logistics are the program

Pickup site, day of week, and hours determine who can realistically participate. A distribution window that ends at 4:00 p.m. excludes most people working hourly shifts. A site that requires two bus transfers excludes households without a car. These constraints should be mapped with community partners before a pilot launches, not discovered in month three.

If participation drops, the first question is almost never about produce. It is about time, transportation, or trust.

Decide what you will measure before you launch

A pilot that collects nothing cannot be improved or funded. A pilot that collects everything burns out the people running it. Amana Healthcare works with partners to select a short list of indicators tied directly to the program's logic model — typically referral volume, redemption rate, repeat participation, and participant-reported experience — and to define who collects each one and how it is stored.