NERHMIS Meeting Minutes

March 10, 2006

10:00    Introductions and Updates

Collection to send card and flowers to Linda Newell

10:15    April 10th Conference Update John McGah Progress and To Do List

NERHMIS Conference April 2006- PLEASE REGISTER at:  http://www.mccormack.umb.edu/csp/2006NE-HMIS/

• Presentation Materials are due:  March 17, 2006
• Detailed agenda attached
• Presentations and workshops
• Roundtable Discussions:

• Sensitive populations DV, HIV, MH, SA: Round table where concerns are shared discussed and outline of steps to proceed in "appropriate" HMIS involvement is drafted (Michelle Hayes and Brian Smith, Facilitator)
• Data Exchange:  (Brian Sokol and Walt Hewitt)
• Consumer Involvement: Share what HUD, implementers, Exec Dir's might be missing form your perspective in making HMIS really work (Kat Freeman and Cindy Namer, Facilitators)
• Questions: 
• How do you feel about this issue?  Do you need any education on this issue?
• What are the outstanding/ongoing challenges on this issue in your community?
• What are strategies that have been successful to address this issue?  How have they implemented at the local level? 
• What are the outstanding needs for technical assistance to address this issue at the local level? 
• What areas of technical assistance are a priority? 

Consumer participation: Julia needs to follow up with details on stipends for consumer participation and stipends. 

11:00    CMHS PATH program participation in HMIS a regional survey

• HUD and HHS working on standardization in homeless data collection
• More than 30 HHS homeless programs
• Looking at how Path program participates in local CoC’s and HMIS
• Analysis of:
• # of Path providers/ state
• How Path providers are collection/reporting data
• Michigan has 20 of 25 participating
• All but one of Path providers in Nevada participating in HMIS
• Looking for strategy for how to sell HMIS to Path Providers
• Path are individual grantees and some also get SHP funding and are participating in HMIS
• Rhode Island: Providence Center (Path Grantee) collecting data in their own system
• Connecticut: Path providers are participating and saw value of application; also two data integration efforts with DMH and Addiction Services (also importing from S+C with XML utility)
• New Hampshire: Path providers already have own system

11:15    NHSDC Conference in Ohio Agenda  

Meeting: April 18-19, 2006

Meeting Agenda Attached

11:30   Tri State Report Writing Project   Update Kat Freeman & Richard Rankin

• VT, ME, and NH working on universal reporting
• Talked about educating CoCs on how to interpret reports and address data quality
• Working to compare apples to apples across states
• Will continue to work as a committee to develop reports
• UMass could help with posting some of the reports on the web site
• Current reports data entry values- missing data field by client and user

12:00    Point in Time Survey with a Unique ID & HMIS   Kim Woolaver

• Provided handout of VT Point in Time Count- Jan 26, 2006
• Used one page form with components for unique ID; gender, race, ethnicity, disability, services provide; unable to access
• Entered into ServicePoint into a point in time screen and coded with county; provider;
• Presented data to CoC
• # of clients duplicated/unduplicated by county
• agencies contacted
• gender
• race
• ethnicity
• services needed
• services not available
• Need standard education materials on point in time process
• NOT FOR PUBLICATION
• Used models from DC, Maine, and
• CT off year of count (Bridgeport used HMIS for data entry)- about half used the point in time as a publicity opportunity
• RI did point in time- Lisa Robinson
• NH and MA did count; do not have results yet
• Would be nice to have a white paper on lessons learned
•  

1:00       Capstone Project from Marlboro College Brattleboro, Vermont

              Introduction of Mark Madison

• IT Masters Program at Brattleboro College
• Brian/Richard went and proposed working with NERHMIS
• Presented the model of developing NERHMIS project
• Brian will send additional information for the conference

1:20       Customer Council Update Walt Hewitt IT Committee

• Handout provided with formal minutes and informal notes from Bowman Customer Council
• Bowman sent out a survey to communities
• Want to further use of self service portal and document community issues
• Experienced slow down in communication over last 6 months- partly due to Katrina
• ART- online training went well
• SP Admin training- NERHMIS would like to host the training with Richard possibly doing the training
• Planning for version 4.5 to be a major upgrade with some long term security implications
• There will be an update to ART on 3/15/07 with next upgrade mid-summer
• Planning user groups

Plan for IT Committee Moving Forward

-Scheduling SP Admin Training

-Need to figure out how to share cost of future training or figure out other strategy

-IT committee with take the lead in working with state sys admins on need for training

1:40        Strategic Plan Update   Cindy Namer Brian Smith 

Where we planned to be and how we are moving toward our goals

2:15       Wrap up Future agenda items                  

Upcoming Agenda Items

Connecticut Presentation on e-learning and data integration

Performance measures and reporting

Strategic Planning

Other issues: 

ESG Training by TAC in Lowell April 27^th at the Doubletree