integrated data and coordinated access: boston’s open ......integrated data and coordinated...

Integrated Data and Coordinated Access: Boston’s Open Source Solution

Laila Bernstein

Advisor to the Mayor of Boston Initiative to End Chronic Homelessness

City of Boston

Jennifer Flynn HMIS Administrator

City of Boston

Ian Kozak Director of Strategic Development

Green River

Our system needed redesign...


Laila Bernstein, Jennifer Flynn, Ian Kozak



1. End Veteran homelessness 2. End chronic homelessness 3. System transformation

“I am so proud to announce: we have ended chronic veterans’ homelessness in Boston. And we are working every day to end all chronic homelessness by the year 2018.” -Mayor Walsh, State of the City Address, January 2016

Action Plan Goals

1,900+ years of homelessness ended: housed 296 chronically homeless individuals since January 2016





System Transformation

FRONT DOOR TRIAGE • Pilot launched

Feb 2016 • Collecting precise

data about history and need

RAPID REHOUSING • City invested

$1.8M • $1.5M from HUD

COORDINATED ACCESS • Built system • Hired Manager • System

improvement

PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING • BHA units +

services • Affordable

housing + services • Produce PSH

6

Coordinated Access System



Housing/Units Available

People in Need of Housing

CAS

Match Suggestion

Communications to involved parties: notify and request action

Move in!

Housing inventory, current vacancies, and homeless individual data initially managed from within the CAS, now mostly coming from warehouse.

A core function of the CAS is to generate ideal matches between individuals and housing opportunities.

Email notifications go to interested parties regarding a proposed match. These can be strictly informational, or provide an opportunity for a match to be explicitly rejected.

● Targets resources to most vulnerable first

● Requires transparency

● Facilitates accountability

● Improves efficiency



Coordinated Access System

Within the City’s CoC: ● 11,670 Single Adults in ES Annually

○ ~1,700 on any given night

● 2,663 Families in ES Annually ○ ~1,250 on any given night

● 27 service agencies using HMIS ● 4 HMIS installations ● ~700+ Users



City of Boston Background

A 2015 initiative set out to address technical systems to support: ● Consolidated HMIS reporting (federal and local) ● 360 degree client view ● Performance analysis across the CoC ● Housing Coordinated Access processes



Scope

● Preserve existing HMIS infrastructure ● Minimize duplicate data entry/points of access ● Leverage data analytics ● Enable future extensibility



Technical Goals

● Publicly advertised RFP with very explicit needs for both the warehouse

and housing placement systems. ● Worked with Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics and the Department

of Innovation and Technology on Ownership Rights ○ Work for Hire - Boston owns the code and intellectual property ○ Agile Development - weekly sprints, put system in production

quickly then make changes based on usage

● Open source/copyleft licensing ○ Licensed for public use ○ For Coordinated Access: github ○ For Warehouse: available soon



Solution Path

Warehouse



Admin Client View

Warehouse



Aggregated Census

Warehouse Admin Reports



Warehouse “Window” Application for Providers



Warehouse Data Import



HUD-Spec HMIS Exports Demographic information Program enrollment Income details

API Calls Assessment results Case manager information Client photos Information releases Client contact information (phone, email)

HMIS HMIS HMIS HMIS

Data Management Application

Window to the Warehouse

Admin Web Application Oversee deduplication Manage users and roles Run aggregate reports View full client records

Service Provider Portal View (redacted) client records

Warehouse Database

Warehouse Data Import



Automatic and suggested deduplication



Include health information for coordinating a wider set of agencies: ● Medical provider notes ● Medical appointments (past and future) ● Integrated multi-agency care plans

Health Care Integration



Health Care Integration Healthcare for the Homeless wireframe

Coordinated Access



Roles and workflows: notifications and logins

Coordinated Access




Laila Bernstein, Jennifer Flynn, Ian Kozak Successes:

● 40 chronically homeless individuals successfully matched; 8 housed

● Nightly data from three different HMIS legacy systems ● Coordinated Access System and HMIS data warehouse linked ● Data driven accountability and system improvement ● HUD Reporting in XML/CSV format ● Performance dashboards ● Network data sharing Challenges: ● Coordination of IT resources and stakeholders ● HIPAA expertise ● Speed to housing



● Add Rapid Rehousing, Veterans ● Including housing opportunities beyond CoC-

funded ○ 10% homeless set-aside units ○ HUD Multifamily affordable housing ○ Boston Housing Authority

● Integration with Health Care providers ● Additional HMISs from nearby CoCs ● Additional case manager activity/notes ● Open source the homeless response system

Future Plans



Leverage analytics for identifying: ● Client vulnerability ● Housing opportunity match success ● Program performance

Future Plans



Collaboration

https://github.com/greenriver/boston-cas

● Open Source, GPLv3

● Ruby on Rails

● MS SQL Server/PostgreSQL

● Hosted Solution



Laila Bernstein [email protected] Advisor to the Mayor of Boston Initiative to End Chronic Homelessness City of Boston Jennifer Flynn [email protected] HMIS Administrator City of Boston Ian Kozak [email protected] Director of Strategic Development Green River

https://www.boston.gov/housing/bostons-way-home Twitter:@BostonsWayHome

integrated data and coordinated access: boston’s open ......integrated data and coordinated...

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