Acuity level

[DaleFitch]

Do we need to capture acuity level? For example, risk of harm to self or others, mental health status, recently discharged from a hospital, child abuse, etc. If left to deducing from other attributes by themselves, then some situations will be missed. For example, homelessness and domestic violence by themselves may have a certain acuity level, but homeless AND domestic violence AND currently in the Emergency Room will have a much higher acuity level. As such, do we need to formally capture acuity level as an entity?

[eric-jahn]

Is this part of a client case management vocabulary? So far, this is limited to just a resource vocabulary, like the AIRS XML Schema.

[DaleFitch]

Vocabulary and, more importantly, thinking as acuity is a determining factor in decision making. It is usually associated with "crisis" situations with what determines a crisis being determined by that sector. Here are two articles; one that address acuity related to intellectual disabilities: http://le.utah.gov/interim/2011/pdf/00001393.pdf and the latter regarding mental health: http://www2.leg.state.vt.us/CommitteeDocs/House%20Judiciary/Mental%20Health%20Acuity%20in%20Burlington/2-10-2014~Jason%20Williams~Mental%20Health%20Acuity%20in%20Burlington.pdf

[NeilMcKLogic]

This seems to me to be more of a case management thing too, in other words out of scope for the resources vocabulary we are defining. I am pretty sure there are Taxonomy terms that could be use to characterize services for these combinations, either standalone or in combination as you note Dale.

[DaleFitch]

I believe another way to capture my thinking would be those situations in which a caller describes a situation in which a 2-1-1 operator would make a "bridge call." That is, instead of simply providing phone numbers to potential services, the operator keeps the caller on the line, calls an agency, and then connects the caller to the agency explaining to the agency the urgency behind the call. These oftentimes occur in crisis situations explained above. In sum, while I do not believe this is strictly a vocabulary issue, the APIs (or any search algorithm) needs to know that certain combinations of terms should result in referring the user to a specific crisis line.

[DaleFitch]

I believe another way to capture my thinking would be those situations in which a caller describes a situation in which a 2-1-1 operator would make a "bridge call." That is, instead of simply providing phone numbers to potential services, the operator keeps the caller on the line, calls an agency, and then connects the caller to the agency explaining to the agency the urgency behind the call. These oftentimes occur in crisis situations explained above. In sum, while I do not believe this is strictly a vocabulary issue, the APIs (or any search algorithm) needs to know that certain combinations of terms should result in referring the user to a specific crisis line.

[DaleFitch]

Apologies for inadvertently closing that issue.

[pollymcdaniel]

Dale - we call this advocacy calls - connecting the caller to the service, or contacting the service on behalf of the caller. What you are describing is how a 2-1-1 operator (Call Specialist) retrieves appropriate data based on the callers needs. This has more to do with good data and proper indexing of services with the Taxonomy. Judging acuity level would be up to the Call Specialist. What you have said is that if i search for this, this and this...then i should automatically get a crisis number. ---While this is interesting, we are just discussing data here, and not potential uses of. Please let me know if I misunderstood your questions.

[DaleFitch]

Polly, yes, that's what I was trying to convey and, yes, I am talking about a use and not necessarily the data. However, I just wanted to make sure we were collecting the data such that an API or any automated systems would "know" to connect the user with a crisis line. I am perhaps hoping for too much. On other hand, Google seems to know what I want before I finish entering all my terms (smile).

[pollymcdaniel]

Sigh...gotta love Google for reading our minds (smiles) But database searching is a much different monster than searching for strings on the internet........with that said, If the data is indexed properly with the Taxonomy, then yes, - this type of programming is possible. As the Taxonomy is cross referenced with related concepts. I've brought this concept up a few times - perhaps some amazing programmer will catch on to the idea and run with it (smiles again)