Seamless Data Integration a Cost-Effective Solution for System Admins

Homelessness doesn’t just exist on the streets. It exists in emergency rooms, schools, jails, prisons, and juvenile detention centers. Therefore, capturing the full scope of homelessness requires data integration between the various data systems these institutions use to capture information. 

Seems simple enough, right? But in reality, it often requires a convoluted web of APIs to make it possible. There’s no one right way to integrate data—and there’s no instruction book. Software applications must have integration tools, open APIs, and import/export mechanisms necessary to make exchange easy.

Believe it or not, a solution exists that makes data integration user-friendly. Clarity Human Services integrates data across systems using sophisticated sharing tools including Data Import and Data Analysis APIs. Clarity Human Services is an HMIS and case management software that has rightfully earned its reputation within the industry as the open, flexible, and secure platform of choice.  

Bitfocus serves as both vendor and system administrator. This means that we use Clarity Human Services on a daily basis, just like you do. This hands-on experience is how we optimize the user experience, making it easier to stop fiddling with your software and focus on the clients you serve. We’ve not only made data collection easy; we’ve also simplified the process to share that data with others to amplify the impact of your work. We’ll outline the importance of data integration, and provide details on how you can take advantage of the features of the Clarity Human Services platform. 

The Importance of Data Integration

It’s one thing to have data. It’s quite another to trust it and rely on it to inform decisions. 

Your ultimate goal isn’t to simply gather facts on the homeless population, but rather to get them the services they need when they need them. The data you collect also influences policy decisions, which is a broader facet of client service.

To do that, you need to understand the clients with whom you work. Integrated databases, such as Clarity, pull data from multiple sources—whether it’s from other HMISs or healthcare, corrections, and education systems—to provide an organized, real-time picture of the homeless population. 

Integrated data allows you to not only identify current clients (even highly mobile ones) and guide them to proper services, you can also better spot citizens who are at-risk of becoming homeless and institute preventive measures. 

The results speak for themselves. Consider this: Without integrated data, your staff has to collect, sort, and re-enter the same data into multiple systems. But with integrated data, you maximize efficiency. And if the data integration complies with state and federal laws on “privacy and personally identifying information,” it engages various agencies that provide services to homeless persons.

You’ll get more powerful (and accurate) analysis to establish a clearer picture of trends across your entire region. 

Clarity: Customized for Your Data Integration Needs

Now, some communities choose to leverage multiple systems to achieve their results. Or they try integrating with less expensive but second-rate solutions. Eventually, this costs them more time and money in organizing data and opens up more room for error. 

Clarity, on the other hand, streamlines data integration on a single platform. It’s designed with customization at the forefront, so you get out of it what you need. 

Its suite of data integration and analysis tools enable you to import and export your HUD and locally defined client data with ease. With these tools, system administrators can export pre-built and custom reports and dashboards, and both schedule and automate integrations through an open RESTful API. 

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Clarity’s APIs also support integrations with a wide range of partners, stakeholders, and systems of care like hospitals or local law enforcement agencies. You can create dynamic visualizations that consolidate diverse datasets to present them all in one place. That encourages collaboration across systems that otherwise remain somewhat independent. 

And with robust privacy and security features that protect client information, de-identify, and aggregate client data, you can follow and establish region-wide trends in real-time, while protecting client privacy.  

Bitfocus manages the backend functionality of Clarity so you can devote your full attention to exploring the advanced data analytics and visualizations available. The Clarity toolkit provides programmatic access to the case management system, with no limits placed on frequency or volume. 

Advanced users can even explore the Customer Data Model to develop custom queries and export schemas to match virtually any need, by scripting their own data to pull directly from their dataset. 

Ultimately, you can craft an experience that’s efficient and effective. Clarity is a human-based solution that makes your job easier and can positively impact your clients’ lives.