Human service organizations manage a colossal amount of information for the services it provides to clients.
“The field of Human Services is broadly defined, uniquely approaching the objective of meeting human needs through an interdisciplinary knowledge base, focusing on prevention as well as remediation of problems, and maintaining a commitment to improving the overall quality of life of service populations. The Human Services profession is one which promotes improved service delivery systems by addressing not only the quality of direct services, but also by seeking to improve accessibility, accountability, and coordination among professionals and agencies in service delivery,” said the National Organization for Human Services (NOHS).
Multiple factors influence this crucial decision of organizations choosing to implement software including having the ability easily manage the information for each client and case and then report these data and statistics to local, state and federal governments.
Last year, the 112th Congress issued a new requirement for organizations to have standard data across to report on to the federal government. Below is an excerpt from the House report 112-210—Child and Family Service Improvement and Innovation Act:
“The Committee believes the programs within its jurisdiction should, from an information technology standpoint, operate consistently within and across programs. By beginning the process of data standardization and the use of common reporting mechanisms in this section, the Committee is achieving three goals: better preventing and identifying fraud and abuse; ensuring appropriate access; and producing program savings for U.S. taxpayers.
The Subcommittee on Human Resources, in its March 11, 2011 hearing on the use of data matching to improve customer service, program integrity, and taxpayer savings, received testimony in support of consistent data standards that are non-proprietary and promote the interoperability of data across various information technology platforms, including State legacy systems. The hearing confirmed that not only are programs within the Subcommittee's jurisdiction in silos, but so is the accompanying data. Improved data standards will help increase the efficiency of data exchanges to use and reuse data within and across programs.
Therefore, the Committee believes that non-proprietary, interoperable data standards in child and family services programs are the first step to better organizing and using data to address fraud and abuse and increase administrative efficiency. This process will have the additional important benefit of improving the services these programs provide to children and families.
Under a new Subpart 3, the legislation would require HHS to issue a rule designating standard data elements for any category of information required to be reported under Title IV-B and would also require the agency to develop a rule providing for standard data reporting under Title IV-B. The rules would need to be developed by HHS in consultation with an interagency workgroup established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and with consideration of State perspectives.
To the extent practicable, the standard data elements required by the rule would need to be non-proprietary; permit data to be exchanged and used (i.e., interoperable); and incorporate the interoperable standards developed and maintained by other recognized bodies (as named in the bill).
To the extent practicable, the data reporting standards required by the rule would need to incorporate a widely-accepted, non-proprietary, searchable, computer-readable format; be consistent with and implement applicable accounting principles; be capable of being continually upgraded as necessary; and incorporate existing nonproprietary standards, such as the eXtensible Business Reporting Language.
Effective date: The provision becomes effective on October 1, 2012.”
Data standardization would give human service organizations the opportunity to “play nice” with many and varied types of software across the country.
However, the data standardization requirement only applies to one section of the Social Security Act which brings into question how much more effective might software implementations be if there were standard, non-proprietary data requirements across the board? What are your thoughts on this? What standards do you think should be required for federal standards? State standards? What are essential standards for statistical analysis?
We would love to hear your thoughts on any of these questions. Leave a comment in the section below or e-mail Tracey Rosenlund.