HMIS Data Self-Monitoring Plan Guide

As an HMIS Partner Agency, you are required to have an HMIS Data Self-Monitoring Plan in place to ensure your projects always have the highest data quality possible. Your data is not only a representation of the clients served, but it tells a story about the effectiveness of your project and the CoC as a whole.

There are a variety of reports available in WellSky Community Services to assist with data monitoring. ICA is providing this tip sheet as guidance on creating a thorough and comprehensive self-monitoring plan. This tip sheet includes report suggestions; however, it is ultimately up to your agency to determine which reports are most effective for your data monitoring goals. When verifying the accuracy of your HMIS data, cross reference these reports with your agency’s hard copy or electronic client records directly. Additionally, you can reference ICA’s Report Summary tip sheet for additional report options not found in this guide.

Please note, this guide does not cover any CE providers. You will need to work with your system administrator directly to develop a self-monitoring plan for those projects.

Data Quality Monitoring Reports

HMIS Consent to Share/Release of Information (All Projects)

All clients served by each of your projects must have an HMIS ROI completed that indicates they agreed to share their data in WellSky Community Services, or refused to share and had their record locked down in the system. There are three exceptions to this requirement: Protected providers, St. Louis C.E. Joint Prioritization List and BoS CES. Protected providers are exempt because data entered for those projects is not shared in the system, clients served by St. Louis CE Joint Prioritization List are required to only have the coordinated entry participation agreement and clients served by BoS CES who refuse to share data are not entered into HMIS.

If a client is served by multiple projects at your agency, there must be an HMIS ROI for each specific provider. You also need to monitor for expired ROIs and get them updated if the client is still being served by the project.

Current Clients Served (All Projects)

Project enrollments need to reflect current clients being served, so entries and exits need to be reviewed regularly to ensure they are up to date.

Project Entry

The Project Start Date for different project types is determined using the following criteria:

• Street Outreach: Date of first contact with the client.
• Emergency Shelter: Night the client first stayed in the shelter.
• Safe Haven and Transitional Housing: Date the client moves into the residential project (i.e. first night in residence).
• Permanent Housing, including Rapid Re-Housing: Date the client was admitted into the project. To be admitted indicates the following factors have been met:
  • Information provided by the client or from the referral indicates they meet the criteria for admission;
  • The client has indicated they want to be housed in this project;
  • The client is able to access services and housing through the project. The expectation is the project has a housing opening (on-site, site-based, or scattered-site subsidy) or expects to have one in a reasonably short amount of time.
• Other Service Projects (including but not limited to Services Only, Day Shelter, Homelessness Prevention, Coordinated Entry): Date the client first began working with the project and generally received the first provision of service.

Project Exit

The Project Exit Date is determined by the following criteria:

• Site-based Residential projects: The last day of continuous stay in the project before the client transfers to another residential project or otherwise stops residing in the project.
• Tenant-based Permanent Housing projects: The last day the client receives rental assistance or supportive services (RRH) or is provided rental assistance (tenant-based PSH, transition-in-place, or other permanent housing)
• Non-residential projects: the last day a service was provided or the last date of a period of ongoing service.

Data Elements (All Projects)

All projects are required to collect certain data elements based on project type and/or funder and ensure they are as complete and accurate as possible. For some projects, this may only be the Universal Data Elements (UDEs), and for others, this may include additional program and/or funder-specific data elements.

Funder specific reports

• MHDC: MHDC Detail/Audit Reports
• PATH: PATH CLS, Services & Referrals by Client
• RHY:ICA Missouri RHY Report, ICA MO RHY Aftercare Report
• SSVF: SSVF DQ Report

Data Entry Timeliness (All Projects)

The expectation is to complete data entry as close to real time as possible, which means if your agency is not doing live data entry, then it must be entered within your CoC’s required timeframe. BoS, Springfield and Joplin CoC’s require data to be entered within three days, while STL City and County require it to be entered within 24 hours. Entering data in a timely manner is more likely to ensure it is complete and accurate.

Annual Assessments (All projects)

Clients served for one year or more must have an annual assessment completed each year they are served by that project. Annual assessments are completed 30 days prior to 30 days after the anniversary of the head of household’s Project Start Date and must include all household members. There must only be one annual assessment recorded in the system per year for the client and each household member.

Housing Move-in Date (RRH and PSH only)

PSH and RRH projects must record a Housing Move-in Date when a client moves into permanent housing. Since there is only one Housing Move-in Date per household per enrollment, the date the HoH moved into permanent housing is applied to all household members even if they joined the household after that date.

Contacts (Street Outreach/Supportive Services)

Clients without a contact recorded at least every 90 days must be exited, as of the date of last contact/service, from your Street Outreach and/or Supportive Services providers.

Services Provided (All projects that provide financial assistance/services)

All providers that need to produce billing or performance reports (exports) that include services and/or financial assistance provided, need to review service transaction records for accuracy. This also means ensuring service transaction records where financial assistance ended up not being used are deleted.

Funder specific reports

• MHDC: MHDC Detail/Audit Reports
• PATH: PATH Contacts, Services and Referrals by Client
• RHY: ICA MO RHY Services Report Workflow
• SSVF: SSVF Services Provided Report

Other Considerations

You may also want to include a process in your data self-monitoring plan for closing out projects that will no longer use HMIS. For example, 30 days prior to the anticipated project end date, the following steps need to take place: data quality reports will be reviewed; data clean up completed; all clients exited from the project; and any needed reports for the project or associated grant will be saved.

A few times a year, ICA will send out notices regarding data cleanup needed for CoC level reports. As part of your data self-monitoring plan, you may want to outline your internal process for addressing these requests and notifying ICA data cleanup has been completed.

Some funders have higher standards than what has been set by your CoC. For example, the VA has a data entry timeliness requirement of 48 hours to enter entry data and 24 hours to enter exit data, which is stricter than BoS, Springfield and Joplin CoCs. It is your responsibility to know the funder’s requirements for each project.

HMIS Data Self-Monitoring Plan (Use one for each project)

Developing an effective self-monitoring plan requires a lot of attention to the details. To better assist you with this process, ICA is including the template below that outlines all the components of a good self-monitoring plan. You may find it beneficial to use as is, or as a reference to create your own.

• Entry of ROIs into HMIS
• Accuracy of Client Count, and their Start and End Dates
• Completeness and Accuracy of required data elements
• Data Entry Timeliness
• Completeness and Accuracy of Annual Assessments
• Completeness and Accuracy of Housing Move-in Date
• Completion of Contacts
• Completeness and Accuracy of Services Provided