HMIS Data Quality Reporting Reference Guide

The HMIS Data Quality Report is a HUD report that reviews data quality across a number of HMIS data elements. Below is a guide for interpreting the data.

Key Definitions:

Project – A project is identified by the CoC as part of its service system, in which an individual client or family is enrolled. A project further defined as a “lodging project” provides overnight accommodations and meets the needs of people who are homeless. A “services project” does not provide lodging and meets specific needs of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Program – A program refers to the federal funding source used to fund a project. One project may have simply one funding source or multiple sources.

Report date range – The start and end date of a specific reporting period

Missing Data – Missing data is defined to mean data where the answer is “data not collected”, is null or blank, or where the entire form or table record on which that field resides is completely absent

Report Section: Q1 - Data Validation Table

The Q1 Report Validation table provides the total unduplicated counts for clients in each category. These counts are used later in the report for calculating error rates.

Report Section: Q2 - Personally Identifiable Information

The Q2 Person Personally Identifiable Information table shows counts of records where the named field contains “Client doesn't know” or “Client refused,” where data is missing, or where data does not comply with specific rules.

Although records can meet criteria allowing them to be counted in more than one column, they are only counted in the the column for the first match.

● The % of Error Rate is calculated using the total number of persons served as the denominator (field 1 from Q1 Report Validation Table)

● Numbers in parentheses after each element (i.e. Name (3.1)) correspond to HUD data standard elements.

Report Section: Q3 Universal Data Elements

The Q3 Universal Data Elements table shows counts of records where the named field contains “Client doesn't know” or “Client refused,” where data is missing, or where data does not comply with specific rules. Unlike the Q2 table, the error counts in the Q3 table are not separated by type and are combined into one count.

Report Section: Q4 Income and Housing Data Quality

The Q4 Income and Housing Quality table shows counts of records where the named field contains “Client doesn't know” or “Client refused,” where data is missing, and/or where a response to whether client has income is inconsistent with income source information.

The error counts in the Q4 table are not separated by error type but are combined into one count.

The % of Error Rates are calculated using the following fields from the Q1 Report Validation Table as the denominators, depending on the error count:

● Number of Leavers (Destination)

● Number of Adult HoH + Number of Child and Unknown Age HoH (Income and Sources at Entry)

● HoH and adult stayers in the project more than 365 days (Income and Sources at Annual Assessment)

● Number of adult and HoH leavers (Income and Sources at Exit)

Report Section: Q5 Chronic Homelessness

The fields in elements 3.917 A and 3.917 B Prior Living Situation are the building blocks of determining if someone has been homeless for enough time to be reported as chronically homeless.

If data is missing in any field in [prior living situation], the HMIS is not able to accurately report chronic homelessness.

• This question applies to adults and HoH active in the date range who started in the project any time after 10/1/2016, which was when element 3.917 was restructured to improve data entry.

Count of Total Records* calculates the number of adults and HoH active during reporting period in:

● Emergency Shelter (ES), Safe Haven (SH), Street Outreach

● Transitional Housing (TH)

● All types of Permanent Housing (PH) ○ PH – Permanent Supportive Housing (disability required for entry) ○ PH – Housing Only ○ PH – Housing with Services (no disability required for entry) ○ PH – Rapid Re-housing

Report Section: Q6 Timeliness

Timely data entry is critical to ensuring data accuracy and completeness. This section identifies how quickly project starts and project exits are entered into the HMIS after they occur.

Report Section: Q7 Inactive Records: Street Outreach & Emergency Shelter

Data quality includes maintaining accuracy in the number of active records in a system.

For projects where clients often leave or disappear without an exit (street outreach and night-by-night shelters), the records often remain open and hamper the project and community’s ability to generate accurate performance measurement.

This section sets a 90-day limit on inactive records and reports how many records within the report range are inactive (i.e. should have been exited but were not) based on contact with the client for outreach or bed nights for shelter.

• Column 2 - # of Records - contains all clients active according to start and exit dates, regardless of project type