Highlights

• Integrated Unique Identifier List: New Coordinated Access module that allows users to generate and print a Unique Identifier List, also known as a By Name List, directly in HIFIS
• Housing Status Information: The ability to easily identify if a client is housed or homeless, including those experiencing chronic homelessness based on the federal definition
• Housing History: Expanded functionalities to improve housing history data entry
• Client Status: Automated features that show a client’s status as active or inactive
• Coordinated Access Consent: New coordinated access consent that can be bundled or separated from the consent to collect, retain and share information in HIFIS (called Explicit or Inherit Consent in HIFIS)
• Security Updates: Security features to strengthen the application’s security against possible system intrusion.

New Features and Major Changes

Coordinated Access

Coordinated Access module:

• the Coordinated Access module provides real time information on active HIFIS clients that are considered homeless, and have provided coordinated access consent
• users have access to an integrated Unique Identifier List with sorting features directly in HIFIS
• users are able to apply advanced filters to adjust which clients appear
• users are able to find additional data points by exporting the Unique Identifier List to a .csv (like Microsoft Excel) format
• users are able to print the Unique Identifier List directly from the Coordinated Access module
• new user rights have been added to control access to the Coordinated Access module
• HIFIS tracks the total amount of time (in days) a client has been homeless and unsheltered from the client’s Housing History and Admissions entries
• HIFIS tracks the amount of time a client has been actively homeless

Client consents

Coordinated access consent type:

• users are able to record when a client consents to wanting housing services (participate in the coordinated access process) by applying the coordinated access consent
• HIFIS automatically ends the coordinated access consent when a client’s explicit or inherited consent ends
• HIFIS notifies users that changing a client’s explicit consent will affect the client’s coordinated access consent and ask the user to confirm this intention before making a change
• users can record when a client has withdrawn their consent to receiving housing services (participate in the coordinated access process)

Housing history and application settings

Housing history tracking enhancements and features:

• users are able to add the last known housing record when they are creating a new client
• users are able to find shelter stays in a client’s housing history record
• users are able to turn on and off whether or not they see the client’s admission / book-ins in the housing history module
• users are able to export a client’s housing history record including their shelter stays
• HIFIS reminds users to verify the client’s active housing history after a certain number of days based on the threshold set in the application settings
• HIFIS administrators can set the number of days (threshold) before the notification to verify the active housing history records appears again

Client Vitals, Client List, Housing Continuum and Look-up Tables

Seeing real-time housing status for clients:

• HIFIS displays the client’s Housing Status on the Client Summary Box
• clients’ housing status appears on the Client List (Front Desk – Clients)
• HIFIS identifies a client’s housing status as either: housed, homeless, chronically homeless, transitional, or unknown
• if HIFIS determines that a client is homeless, it automatically changes their client’s housing status to homeless
• HIFIS sets the client’s housing status as housed if the client has an active housing history record with one of the housed housing types based on the Reaching Home housing continuum
• HIFIS sets the client’s housing status as homeless if the client has an active shelter stay or an active housing history record with a homeless housing type based on the Reaching Home housing continuum
• HIFIS continuously monitors housing statuses to determine and identify chronically homeless clients
• a Reaching Home housing continuum has been created to manage housing types (consult Reaching Home Coordinated Access Guide for more details)
• users can decide if the Transitional category of the Reaching Home Continuum falls under housed or homeless
• the Transitional category will be set to homeless by default
• HIFIS sets the client’s housing status as unknown if there is no active housed record under housing history

Look-Up Table Values

Changes to Services Offered look up table values:

• changed “Aboriginal” to “Indigenous”
• changed “Subsidized/Social Housing” to “Social/Community Housing”
• changed “Drop-in” to “Day Centre/Drop-in”
• created New values: Access Point, Prevention/Diversion, Housing Support, Affordable Housing

Changes to Service Provider look up table values:

• changed “Emergency” to “Emergency Shelter”
• changed “Transitional” to “Transitional Housing”,
• created new values: Access Point, Prevention/Diversion, Housing Support, Affordable Housing
• removed “Non-Shelter”

Client Vitals and Client List

Manage and track client state:

• users are able to find the client’s state (active, inactive, deceased, or archived) in the client’s summary box
• users are able to find all clients recorded in HIFIS (with the exception of archived clients) when searching clients in HIFIS
• HIFIS keeps a log of the client’s state changes that includes when the status was changed and by which user
• HIFIS administrators are able to set the number of days to lapse (inactivity threshold) between transaction events before the Client State is automatically changed to inactive
• HIFIS will change the client’s state from active to inactive once the inactivity threshold has been reached
• HIFIS now has archived as an option for the client state which replaces the existing “Inactive” function
• HIFIS automatically updates the client state field to track who is currently active in the community

Impact Security and User Accounts

Enhanced Security features:

• HIFIS now has account login throttling at 3 times per minute. This is separate from the configurable lockout policy
• removed Service Provider selection from the login screen to help prevent password guessing attacks. Users are now logged into a default service provider:
• the initial default service provider is based on the user’s last login selection
• a new error logging file system has been added to accommodate the Domain portion of the application
• additional validation of return URL parameters is added throughout the application
• configuration options have been added to remove potentially unsafe http headers from response information

What's Different

Admissions

• Fixed default Programs not being applied to transactions when using Express Book-in feature.
• Booking a client in automatically closes off their reservation.
• Fixed issue with Hidden clients appearing in some modules.
• Fixed Block Book-outs deleting future stays.
• Users can set the date that a bed becomes active in Manage Rooms and Beds

Application Settings

• Fixed issue with both, clients and people not showing up when “Clients in People Search” setting is enabled.

Case Management

• Case sessions description field character limit increased from 2000 to 4000.
• Fixed issue with Case Management filters not working properly.

Contact Information

• Fixed issue with client contact numbers not deleting.

Client Service Delete

• Fixed issue with deleting Subsidies creating orphaned service records.

Conflict

• Fixed issue where a client can be both the aggressor and the victim in a conflict.

Contacts

• Fixed issue with custom contact types not saving.

Documents

• Housing Placement Documents no longer appear in client document list
• Incidents documents no longer appear in the client document list

Goods and Services

• Fixed the hour value not being recognised properly in Express Services.

Group Activities

• Fixed issue with “Expended Hours” not rounding up in Group Activities.

Housing Loss Prevention

• Move-out Date field added to Housing Loss Prevention when the user confirms that it is the final follow-up and that the client is no longer housed.

Look-up Table

• A Housing Sub-Type has the same behavior as its parent Housing Type.

Reports

• Fixed issue with text filter not appearing in Custom Reports tab.
• Description column added to all report tabs.

Rights

• Fixed issue with users being able to manipulate Turn Aways from other service providers they have access to but not the appropriate rights
• Fixed issue where quick add option would appear in Client Information and Client Management menus regardless of the rights
• Fixed issue with user rights allowing the editing of a client’s SPDAT from another service provider
• Fixed issue with users being able to edit Family management without the appropriate rights
• Fixed issue with users being able to manipulate Housing History records from other service providers without the appropriate rights

Service Providers

• Fixed “Hide service provider data” flag that would reset to “No” after editing information in “Service Provider Details”.

Service Restrictions

• Fixed issue where users could not add a Service Restriction if they had a rights template applied to their profile.
• Fixed issue with Hidden clients appearing in some modules.

Surveys

• Users are now able to edit completed surveys.

Turn Aways

• Presumed indigenous and observed disability fields can be removed from the anonymous turn aways form in the application settings.

Various

• Fixed issue where Programs could not be deleted from service transactions.

VAT

• Users can now attach documents to VAT records.

System

• Fixed issue with Hidden clients appearing in some modules.