As stated in previous HMIS Newsletters, the MD BoS HMIS has undergone extensive review and many areas were identified to be corrected and improved. The majority of updates / improvements have now been completed & can be reviewed in the attached 'MD BoS HMIS 101' article.
Updates made by the MD BoS HMIS Team are in an effort to:
- Bring MD BoS HMIS into compliance with HMIS Data Standards
- Increase HMIS data quality
- Collect data for agency & CoC report(s)
All of us working the homeless field understand it is the person experiencing homelessness, not the data, that is the primary focus of the CoC's homeless response system; however, data is a vitally important tool to be used by projects, agencies, and the CoC as a whole to show the picture of homelessness, and responses to it, in a community, agency, and project.
While HMIS data entry is not necessarily complicated, it is precise. To ensure that all data entered into MD BoS HMIS data creates an accurate picture of how individuals move through the homeless system and to visualize system performance, both at the project & system level, it is imperative that the correct data entry workflows are being used.