Category: Blog
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Envisioning cooperative resource directory information infrastructure in Minnesota
Minnesota residents can look for information about a range of human services on MinnesotaHelp.Info®, a resource navigation program supported through partnership among several public entities (including the state’s Department of Human Services and Board on Aging). Minnesotans can also look for information about human services via 2-1-1, which is operated by United Ways of Minnesota…
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Sustaining 211 in Western New York (and beyond)
211 plays several critical roles not just for the people who call our helpline, but to the entire health, human, and service sector domain – starting with our painstaking work to collect and maintain directory data about the services across this domain. This information management requires expertise and care and cannot be automated. Organizations throughout our…
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Powering South Dakota’s Community Information Exchange: Helpline Center’s resource data service
[Editor note: We’re excited to share this post from Shauna Batcheller, Care Coordination Program Director at the Helpline Center, South Dakota’s 211 and 988 service provider] Nexus SD is a collaborative statewide initiative to develop capacities for community information exchange among health, human and social service providers across the state of South Dakota. This collaboration’s…
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Upgrading our Governance: Introducing the Open Referral Standing Technical Committee
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Open Referral’s new standing technical committee wants to hear from members of our community about your priorities and feedback. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey– your input can help us shape our roadmap for the year ahead!] As the Open Referral Initiative grows – including new and evolving international networks – our Human…
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Upgrading our standards: Introducing version 3.1 of the Human Service Data Specifications
EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome Kathryn Irish, Senior Data Analyst of Open Data Services, to the Open Referral blog! Also note: Open Referral’s new standing technical committee wants to hear from members of our community about your priorities and feedback for future versions of HSDS, and for other features of our emerging ecosystem. Please take a few…
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The Risks of AI in I&R Part 2
This is the second post in a series about the Risks and Opportunities of AI in I&R. My first post considered the long, disappointing history of “algorithmic technologies” in human service sectors. In this post, we’ll examine the specific kind of “AI” that has recently generated a lot of excitement: Large Language Models (LLMs) and the chatbots through…
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The Risks of AI in I&R – Part 1
Last month I presented at the 2024 Inform USA Grand Gathering in Grand Rapids Michigan, and my session – the Risks of AI in I&R – was probably the most popular I’ve delivered in 10 years of these conferences. So I’ll relay a summary here, in a series of posts.
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I&R’s big opportunity with AI
Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, our world has been ignited with the possibilities and dangers of this new breed of AI, called Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI). While there are a number of ways to use Gen AI for text, audio, images and video, today I’ll focus on the Large Language Models…
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Resource data as a service: 2-1-1 Maryland’s new integration with their state’s healthcare IT infrastructure
We’ve partnered with 2-1-1 Maryland over many years, so we’re especially proud of their recent partnership with CRISP – Maryland’s Health Information Exchange – and Maryland’s Department of Health. This year, we helped 211MD and CRISP develop a groundbreaking partnership with MDH’s Primary Care Program. The results of this partnership point to exciting new horizons…