There are no shortage of data at government agencies. The issue is that these data are typically housed at the agency responsible for collecting it, and these agencies don’t automatically permit their data to ‘talk’ to each other. For example, in a given city, foster care, juvenile justice, and homeless services regularly collect data on their clients, but these data aren’t integrated. So, while the same clients may engage in multiple services, there is no way for the agency to know this. However, there are a variety of methods available to integrate these data to obtain a more complete understanding of services outcomes.
Best Practice Paper: “An Overview of Architectures and Techniques for Integrated Data Systems Implementation”
This paper begins with a discussion of potential applications of linked administrative data in policy-level and case-level decision-making. It then presents primary data integration approaches and options that are available to health and human services enterprises based on today’s technologies and know-how. The paper also addresses the data architecture options and business process implications of embarking on a data integration program.