Category: Blog

  • Supporting the Gravity Project to expand interoperability among health, human, and social services

    Supporting the Gravity Project to expand interoperability among health, human, and social services

    Often people ask how we enable care providers to actually refer their clients to another service. The answer is, well, Open Referral doesn’t actually deal with the process of “making a referral” at all! We’re working to ensure that there’s open access to information about the services to which someone might be referred.  But the…

  • LOOP: Resource Data Collaboration, Live at Leeds

    LOOP: Resource Data Collaboration, Live at Leeds

    Leeds, a city in the North of England, has developed an open-source API-based service directory data infrastructure. LOOP (Leeds Open Online Platform) provides a way for the city’s local authority, voluntary sector and private partners to collaborate on a shared information repository. The City Digital Partnerships Team is currently leading the project. We are hosted…

  • Upgrading the Human Service Data API protocols to 2.0

    Upgrading the Human Service Data API protocols to 2.0

    [Ed: This post is from Kin Lane, author of initial Human Service Data API protocols, and now Chief Evangelist at Postman, an API development platform. Welcome back, Kin!] Now that the Open Referral Initiative has upgraded to version 2 of the Human Service Data Specification (HSDS), we’re commencing a subsequent upgrade to version 2 of…

  • Open Referral’s 2020 Year in Review

    Open Referral’s 2020 Year in Review

    Amid the disruptions and crises of 2020, the Open Referral Initiative rallied to meet increasing and rapidly changing needs for improved flow of information about community resources. As our new year starts to take shape – with collective needs for collaboration still rising unabated – we’ve taken some time to reflect on our progress and accomplishments.…

  • Introducing NCCARE360: a coordinated statewide resource referral platform

    Introducing NCCARE360: a coordinated statewide resource referral platform

    [This post is from Laura Marx, President and CEO of United Way of North Carolina. Welcome, Laura!]  In 2019, the first statewide health and human service care coordination platform launched in North Carolina: NCCARE360. Part of a broader healthy opportunities network envisioned by the state Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) — NCCARE360…

  • Innovating Around the Intervention: Activate Care’s Coordination Tools, Powered by Open Referral

    Innovating Around the Intervention: Activate Care’s Coordination Tools, Powered by Open Referral

    [Welcome to Jonathan Abbett, VP of User Experience at Activate Care!] Imagine if our healthcare and social service systems were able to seamlessly coordinate care around all of our physical, behavioral, and social health needs. Back in 2012, inspired by this vision, I joined a technology start-up that is now known as Activate Care. I…

  • HHS Technology Challenge calls for interoperability solutions using HSDS

    HHS Technology Challenge calls for interoperability solutions using HSDS

    The U.S. Administration for Community Living provides funding and support to networks of community-based organizations who serve elders and people with disabilities. ACL’s grantees include a vast array of services that help people cope with food insecurity and transportation issues, manage chronic disease, support employment and economic independence, reduce social isolation, and address other factors…

  • Release Announcement: Benetech Service Net upgrade

    Release Announcement: Benetech Service Net upgrade

    [Welcome back to the blog, Benetech! This post is from KP Naidu, VP of Benetech Labs, with an update on their Service Net.]   Here in Benetech’s home of the San Francisco Bay Area, our communities are facing compounding crises: the pandemic, economic crisis, and most recently out of control wildfires forcing thousands of evacuations…

  • Upgrading our specifications: A proposal for HSDS 2.0

    Upgrading our specifications: A proposal for HSDS 2.0

    We’re excited to share a proposed upgrade to the Human Services Data Specification, authored by our technical partners, the Open Data Services Cooperative. Over the next two weeks, we’ll field feedback on these proposed changes. Take a look at the proposal in our Github repository – you can leave comments in the Issues queue –…