This week's introduction

By now, you should have met with all of your partner agencies and have completed mapping, or at least are well on your way to mapping, all of the services these agencies provide. That's not to say that you've covered all of the things they do, just the services they provide. During the next few weeks we will be filling in the blanks to talk about everything else they might need to do in HIFIS 4.

This week, we're going to be reviewing service interruptions. A "service interruption" is not an official term you would see anywhere in HIFIS. However, it is being used this week to help provide context and information for some related ideas.

There are four related concepts in HIFIS 4 discussed this week:

• Service Restrictions are created when a client is restricted from accessing a Service Provider. As there is a setting that allows Service Restrictions to be overridden, some agencies also use Service Restrictions to indicate when a client has a warning related to their service use.

• Turnaways are created when a client attempts to access a Service Provider and ultimately does not receive the service they are seeking. Note that an increasing number of communities are using the Turnaways module to record shelter diversion.

• Conflicts are recorded when a client has an ongoing dispute with another client or staff and an interaction between them would likely result in an incident of some variety.

• Incidents are created when there is a reportable incident such as a medical event, an accident, or an altercation involving one or more clients and/or staff.