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Data Quality: Data Quality In A Nutshell
Data quality is the extent to which the information in AKHMIS (Alaska Homeless Management Information System) accurately represents real-world clients. High quality data within AKHMIS is integral to all work towards ending homelessness because it:
- Provides a clearer understanding of homelessness within the community, which:
- Allows for data-informed decisions at both the project- and system-levels.
- Enables a CoC (Continuum of Care) and providers to tell the story of homelessness as realistically and completely as possible. This is especially important for advocacy and community education.
- Provides direct care staff with immediate access to client information that streamlines service delivery and referrals for clients.
- May improve a client's experience with the Coordinated Entry process and help determine the services for which they are eligible.
- Results in more accurate and complete reports for funders and stakeholders, which can affect:
- Meeting the requirements for CoC and other federal funding streams.
- The funding opportunities providers may apply for; and
- A provider's ability to obtain funding to provide services.
Four Components of Data Quality
HUD (The United States Department of Housing & Urban Development) identifies data quality as having four components: completeness, timeliness, accuracy, and consistency. These components are defined below.
| Completeness
|
All clients entered in HMIS Complete identifying data entered in HMIS Complete characteristics fields entered in HMIS All services entered in HMIS Complete exit data entered in HMIS |
| Timeliness
|
Data entered soon after collectioin Changing data kept up to date |
| Accuracy
|
Truthfulness from clients Accurate data entered by staff |
| Consistency
|
Common interpretation of questions Common interpretation of client answers Common knowledge of what fields to answer |
Why data completeness is important
Complete data is critical to finding the right services for clients to end their homelessness experience. Incomplete data can negatively impact the AK CoCs' ability to make population-level assessments, analyze patterns in client information, identify changes within the homeless population, and adapt strategies appropriately. AKHMIS data quality is also part of funding applications, including CoC- and ESG-funding, and low AKHMIS data quality scores may impact renewal funding or future funding requests.
Why data timeliness is important
Entering data into AKHMIS in a timely manner is necessary to ensure that clients receive or make connections to the services they need in a quick and efficient manner. Timely data entry also ensures that data is accessible when it is needed, whether for monitoring purposes, meeting funding requirements, or for responding to requests for information. Finally, when data is entered in a timely manner, it helps reduce human error that can occur when too much time has elapsed between the data collection/service transaction and the data entry.
Why Data accuracy is important
Information entered in AKHMIS needs to accurately represent the clients who are served by any homeless service projects contributing data to AKHMIS. Inaccurate data, sometimes referred to as incongruent data, is evaluated at both the client and household levels, and highlights data elements that appear to rationally conflict with one or more other data elements.
Why consistency is important
Data consistency means that data is understood, collected, and entered in the same way across all projects in AKHMIS. Consistency directly affects the accuracy of data.