The AIRS/211 LA County Taxonomy of Human Services (the Taxonomy) as defined on http://www.211taxonomy.org/, “is a classification system that allows you to distinguish concepts, name concepts and put those concepts in order.  It is used to index and access information about a subject in a systematic, unambiguous way. In a human service context, a taxonomy is a classification system that allows you to index and access community resources based on the services they provide and the target populations they serve, if any.  It provides a structure for your information and it tells people what is in your information system and how to find it.” AIRS is the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems.

 

 

The Taxonomy is a “living” classification system, that is, it is updated regularly to add new terms, and terms are occasionally reordered to organize them into similar groupings. 

 

 

 

Bowman Systems agrees that the Taxonomy is well suited for Human Services applications, and therefore we incorporate the Taxonomy into our software. 

 

ServicePoint utilizes the Taxonomy for two purposes; first, it is used to index Provider records with the services they offer. For example, an agency that “acquires food products through donations, canned food drives, food bank programs or direct purchase and distributes the food to people who are in emergency situations” is indexed with the Taxonomy term “Food Pantry”.

 

Because the agency is indexed with the “Food Pantry” term, the agency will be listed when “agencies that provide food” are requested. Agencies may be indexed with numerous Taxonomy terms; Bowman Systems recommends that one term be added for each service that an agency provides.

 

A second use of the Taxonomy in our software is capturing client Needs. Using another example, if a client comes to an agency seeking, “a place to stay for a couple of nights while they search for new housing” the Need would be entered as the Taxonomy term “Day Shelters”. When the user then searches for an agency that meets this Need they will find all agencies that are indexed with the “Day Shelter” term.

 

Using the Taxonomy for these two purposes enables our users to consistently index and locate agencies, and to consistently capture the needs of the community, while matching clients to the appropriate agencies.

 

 

 

When you select a Bowman Systems’ product we will work with you to acquire the AIRS/211 LA County Taxonomy license. On an annual basis we will renew your license.

 

The Taxonomy license permits access to the content on www.AIRS.org  and www.211taxonomy.org.  When you register with AIRS a Sign-on ID and Password are created.

 

 

 

AIRS recommends that the Taxonomy remain current by updating the Taxonomy within six months of the latest release. A new Taxonomy is released monthly.

 

The Taxonomy changes frequently because, “In order for the Taxonomy to remain useful as a tool for indexing and accessing community resources, it needs to accurately reflect the ever-changing human services delivery system. When new services become available or when the language describing human services changes, the Taxonomy must be modified accordingly in order to meet the needs of the field (from the FAQ section of www.211taxonomy.org).”

 

 

 

To easily update the Taxonomy into Bowman Systems databases, we have developed an Auto Updater application. The Auto Updater is triggered when a new code set is downloaded from the Taxonomy web site. After the download occurs, the Auto Updater is activated and the code set is updated in each of our databases. We down load the latest Taxonomy once per calendar quarter. Remote sites (those not hosted by Bowman Systems) require scheduled access for taxonomy updates.

 

 

 

Bowman Systems recently implemented a new software feature that allows the Taxonomy to be customized. Customization in this case is the ability to inactivate Taxonomy terms. By doing this, the term will not be available to Resource Specialists when indexing Provider records.

 

Why is this necessary? Some communities have found that indexing Providers with Level 1 or Level 2 terms is not an efficient indexing method. Likewise some communities believe that indexing at lower levels is also inefficient. Therefore these communities can prevent unwanted indexing by inactivating some terms.

 

Here is an example, a Taxonomy term is “Cable Bill Payment Assistance”, another term is “Electric Bill Payment Assistance”, and yet another term is “Gas Bill Payment Assistance”. A community may decide that these terms are too detailed and commit to only indexing agencies that provide these services with the higher level term “Utility Bill Payment Assistance”. In this example the three low-level terms may be inactivated in ServicePoint.

 

Please note that if terms are inactivated, they will still be available for capturing client needs. Therefore, if the community has an extraordinary amount of requests for Gas Bill Payment Assistance this Need will be seen when client Needs are reported.

 

 

 

There are a few Frequently Asked Questions in regard to how Bowman Systems implements the taxonomy and handles taxonomy changes. The FAQs and answers are listed below:

 

 

 

Adding a new term is straight-forward. The new term is simply added to the database and it is immediately available for indexing and capturing client needs. A user should access the www.211taxonomy.org website to view new terms that are included in each taxonomy update. This information can be found under the “Recent Changes” tab.

 

 

 

There are two types of changes. The first type requires no action at all. The change is simply an enhanced definition of the term. This occurs when AIRS adds a new “Use Reference”, clarifies the definition, or makes any routine adjustments to the term.

 

The second type of change is more dramatic and requires database activity that is handled by Bowman Systems. This change occurs when a term’s associated code is altered. For example, AIRS switched from a five level code system to a six level code system, and every code in the taxonomy was updated to reflect the new format. Although this example was a drastic change, it is not uncommon for codes to be changed regularly. A more common example is the reclassification of a code from one area of the taxonomy to another. A recent change involved “Ice”. Ice was moved from a Food term to a Disaster Services term because Ice is more commonly available after a disaster. This change did nothing to alter the definition of Ice but the taxonomy code itself was altered.

 

Bowman Systems take the following action when a taxonomy code is changed:

 

1.    Remove the old code from the database.

2.    Add the new code to the database.

3.    Change all references from the old code to the new code. This occurs in the following areas: Service Transactions, Admin Provider Services Provided, and Service Quick Lists.

 

 

 

Each of the two terms are treated as code changes (as described above) if the associated taxonomy code is altered. In this arrangement the new higher level term is added to the database as a new term.

 

 

 

Bowman Systems treats the first new term as a changed term (as described above), and associates the old term with the first new term. We treat the second term as a new term and simply add it to the database for immediate use.

 

 

 

When a term is deleted we logically remove the old code from the database. In this situation the old term must be manually removed from Provider records. The good news is that this does not happen as often as term changes.

 

 

 

Yes, we do not alter term settings when we update terms.

 

 

 

The database will be automatically updated to the new Taxonomy automatically, after we down load the Taxonomy to Bowman Systems. We down load the Taxonomy once per calendar Quarter. As a licensee of the Taxonomy it is up to you to understand the changes in each version and to determine how your community wants to handle the changes.

 

 

 

In ServicePoint the date of the latest Taxonomy update is listed in the screen footer immediately after the Taxonomy of Human Service copyright information.

 

 

    

     ServicePoint must be updated to 4.04 v1035 to support the Six Level Taxonomy.