By Michelle Shumate
Affordable housing, employment, safety, mental and behavioral health, affordable legal services, transportation, income support, benefits navigation, education, and health – many organizations are dedicated to meeting these singular needs. However, until recently, the healthcare and human service sectors have operated as independent bodies which rarely, if ever, intersected or collaborated. Similarly, socio-cultural models suggest that problems, such as community violence and substance abuse, are intertwined with community and society problems. Because human needs are related, greater coordination among human service providers and healthcare providers is needed.
Navigation systems have emerged in the last decade to address these interdependent social issues. Navigation systems describe organizational arrangements designed to support individuals in locating and obtaining valuable benefits, programs, and services. This report details the various navigation system designs in Pennsylvania. Its goals are three-fold.
- Describe the common navigation designs in Pennsylvania and detail the advantages and disadvantages of each.
- Identify the opportunities and challenges that the proliferation of these systems, including systems that serve specialized populations, create.
- Detail the emerging best practices for navigation system analytics and determine outcomes, including the data requirements and areas for growth.