About
The Open Referral Initiative develops data standards and open platforms that make it easy to share and find information about community resources. Learn more about the initiative at OpenReferral.org.
Data Specifications
This site contains documentation for the Human Services Data Specification (HSDS) and the API specification.
These can be used to structure and exchange information about the accessibility of health, human, and social services. Specifically, the HSDS describes data about organizations, the services they provide, the locations at which these services can be accessed, and associated details. It also describes protocols for accessing and managing this data.
Our ecosystem
Open Referral’s ecosystem includes a range of working open source software applications that can be freely redeployed to work with HSDS-compatible data and/or APIs. Many of these tools can be found in our Github organization.
Learn more about the why’s, how’s, and who’s of the Open Referral Initiative in our Public Documentation, and browse all of our Project Documents on Google Drive
Join Open Referral’s Community of Practice
We are formally convened in this Community Forum.
You can also join our Slack team.
Sign up for our email newsletter on our homepage.
Get in touch
Questions not answered here? Suggestions for us?
Email us! We can discuss directly, and/or invite you to join our forum where you can engage in the various topics and ongoing discussions surrounding Open Referral and HSDS.
We also have a Slack team, which isn’t used all that often but feel free to request an invite and chat there.
Site contents
Contents:
HSDS Reference
HSDS Implementation Guidance
About the Open Referral Initiative