It’s that time of year for writing grant proposals, so we’ve been getting lots of requests to know who’s offering “similar services in the same target area.” That’s sort of a tough question to answer right now — our region’s 2-1-1 database is in the process of being liberated to an easy-to-use database software that will soon allow access to the searchable database of community resources. But, that won’t be ready for a month or two. And, resource data designed for information & referral (like a 2-1-1 database) is comprehensive but not complete, so, though its a good starting place, you can’t count on it to capture all of the players in a given field and whether there’s a gap in services. If you want to get completeness in a field (say, have a listing of all the nursing home) that’s beyond the current best practices in maintaining a 2-1-1 community resource database.

The good news is that for some questions, like “how many nursing homes are in the New Orleans region?” you should be able to get “completeness” from an administrative source such as the state Dept of Social Services, since they license those facilities. That link is:

http://www.dss.state.la.us/departments/os/licensing/default.asp

If you “Search by License Types” and choose “Adult Residential” and then click the submit button directly below that search field, it’ll bring up a list.

But if you search the yellow pages, or Medicare’s “Nursing Home Compare” database, you get a similar, but different list:

http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/

I am assuming there are some subtleties of service provision in which some nursing homes are licensed by an entity other than the state. Or maybe the state’s database has a lag or has some reporting errors. Or maybe there are a good handful of nursing homes operating without licenses.

Some technology vendors might argue that all you need to do is “fuse” these databases together — but that would trample on what are likely some significant issues in the field (like, should you be including non-licensed nursing homes in a referral database??). Integrating data can’t fix data problems, rather it masks them. Not good.

Anyway, looks like for now there’s at least three or four data ponds to go fishing in if you want to know where the nursing homes are.