Care Coordination & Privacy Framework

Love INC of Shelby County

Love INC of Shelby County works alongside churches, nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers, government and community agencies, and other local service providers to help neighbors address immediate needs while also identifying resources, relationships, and opportunities that may contribute to greater stability and long-term change.

Many of these relationships are informal. We think of them as community alliances—independent organizations working cooperatively, when appropriate, for the good of the people we serve and the community as a whole.

Effective coordination requires information. It also requires trust.

Love INC is committed to protecting the privacy, dignity, and confidentiality of every neighbor while using information responsibly to provide effective assistance.

Our Role

Love INC is a community-based nonprofit organization. We are not a medical provider, health plan, or healthcare clearinghouse.

Our work may include:

Receiving requests for assistance directly from neighbors.
Receiving referrals from churches, nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers, government agencies, and other community organizations.
Understanding a neighbor's immediate circumstances and underlying needs.
Identifying appropriate community resources.
Making referrals and helping neighbors connect with other organizations.
Identifying opportunities for longer-term assistance, supportive relationships, counseling, financial education, church connections, and other potentially transformative resources.
Coordinating with other organizations when appropriate.
Following up with neighbors and organizations.
Maintaining internal case and resource information necessary to perform our work.

Love INC does not provide medical treatment, access hospital electronic medical records, or maintain another healthcare provider's clinical record.

Our Approach to Confidentiality

Love INC regularly works with sensitive personal information.

Depending upon the circumstances, this may include information about:

Household and family circumstances
Income and expenses
Housing and utilities
Employment
Transportation
Assistance previously received
Current and previous needs
Relationships with other service organizations
Limited health-related circumstances when relevant to a request for assistance
Other information voluntarily provided by the neighbor or an appropriate referring organization

We take responsibility for protecting this information seriously.

Staff and volunteers who work with sensitive information receive confidentiality training and, where appropriate, HIPAA-awareness training.

Our guiding principle when communicating information outside Love INC is:

Share what is reasonably necessary to coordinate appropriate assistance—no more than necessary for that purpose.

Community Alliances and Care Coordination

People facing difficult circumstances frequently interact with several organizations.

One organization may be addressing food needs, another healthcare, another housing, another transportation, and another financial or relational concerns. Without appropriate communication, each organization may see only one part of the person's circumstances.

Love INC seeks to reduce unnecessary fragmentation while respecting the neighbor's privacy.

When appropriate, we may communicate with another organization involved in assisting the neighbor so that relevant parties have enough information to understand the current situation, assistance already provided, resources engaged, or appropriate next steps.

These community alliances generally do not imply a formal partnership, contract, or agreement between Love INC and the other organization.

Brief Case and Status Summaries

A Love INC case history can contain substantial information accumulated through multiple contacts over time.

When referring a neighbor to another organization, or when appropriately updating an organization that referred a neighbor to Love INC, it is generally neither necessary nor desirable to provide the entire case history.

Instead, Love INC may prepare a brief case or status summary containing information relevant to the particular coordination or referral.

These summaries may include:

The neighbor's identity when necessary.
The reason for the referral or communication.
Relevant current circumstances.
Assistance Love INC has provided or coordinated.
Resources already engaged.
Pending documentation or next steps.
Other limited information reasonably necessary for effective coordination.

Our objective is to provide useful context without unnecessarily disclosing the neighbor's complete case history.

Working With Healthcare Organizations

Love INC may receive referrals from hospitals, medical practices, public-health organizations, and other healthcare-related organizations.

Love INC does not access a healthcare provider's electronic medical record system or maintain the provider's clinical record.

When communicating with a healthcare organization, Love INC seeks to limit information to what is reasonably necessary for coordinating the non-clinical assistance or community support involved.

We do not routinely request or communicate detailed diagnoses, test results, medication information, clinical notes, or other medical documentation when that information is unnecessary to the assistance being coordinated.

HIPAA Awareness

Love INC is not a healthcare provider and does not represent itself as a HIPAA-covered healthcare organization.

Nevertheless, because we work with healthcare organizations and may encounter health-related information, appropriate staff and volunteers receive HIPAA-awareness training.

Principles of confidentiality, careful access, appropriate communication, and limiting information to what is reasonably necessary inform our practices even when a particular item of information or interaction is not governed by HIPAA.

Technology and Artificial Intelligence

Love INC uses technology, including artificial intelligence-assisted tools, to help staff and volunteers perform certain administrative, analytical, research, and coordination functions more effectively.

Depending upon the task, these tools may help us:

Review and organize case information.
Identify important circumstances or unanswered questions.
Research available community resources.
Match a neighbor's circumstances with potential resources.
Evaluate and maintain information in our Resource Master.
Review and organize household financial information.
Assist with budgeting and financial planning.
Identify possible longer-term resources and relationships.
Prepare concise case or status summaries for appropriate coordination with other organizations.
Reduce repetitive administrative work so staff and volunteers can respond more quickly.

AI-assisted tools support our work. They do not replace human judgment, responsibility, or relationships.

People determine how Love INC responds, what assistance may be appropriate, what information should be communicated, and how relationships with neighbors and other organizations are developed.

De-Identification and Minimization of Case Information

Love INC seeks to limit the personal information used with technology and AI-assisted tools to what is reasonably necessary for the particular purpose.

When appropriate, Love INC removes or minimizes information that directly identifies a neighbor before case information is used for additional AI-assisted analysis, resource research, or evaluation.

This may include removing or replacing identifying information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, account numbers, and other identifying details that are not necessary for the particular task.

De-identification does not necessarily mean that all information concerning a neighbor's circumstances is removed. Information about household circumstances, finances, housing, employment, transportation, assistance previously received, health-related circumstances, or other needs may remain when relevant to understanding the situation and identifying appropriate resources.

Our objective is to provide enough information for meaningful analysis and resource evaluation while avoiding unnecessary use of information that directly identifies the neighbor.

Certain technology providers may necessarily process information while providing services used by Love INC. Love INC seeks to use such services responsibly, limit the information provided to what is appropriate for the task, and apply additional safeguards to sensitive case information when reasonably practicable.

Why We Use Technology

A person asking for help should not have to wait unnecessarily while a volunteer spends hours manually reviewing records, researching organizations, comparing eligibility requirements, organizing financial information, or summarizing a lengthy case history.

Technology can substantially reduce the administrative time required for these activities while allowing us to consider information more thoroughly.

That can help Love INC respond to needs more quickly and make better use of the hours generously provided by our staff and volunteers.

But efficiency is not our ultimate objective.

The purpose of saving administrative time is to create more capacity for people to serve people.

The Human Relationship Remains Central

Love INC believes meaningful, long-term change is most likely to occur in the context of trusting human relationships.

Technology can process information.

It can help identify resources.

It can organize financial information.

It can help us recognize possibilities and respond more quickly.

But technology cannot build trust.

Trust is built one person at a time, through one human relationship with another.

Our goal in using technology is therefore not to make Love INC less personal. It is to reduce administrative work so our staff and volunteers have greater capacity to listen, encourage, understand, connect, follow up, and develop meaningful relationships with the people we serve.

Information-Sharing Practices

When coordinating assistance, Love INC seeks to:

Limit access to case information to people with an appropriate organizational reason to access it.
Conduct sensitive case discussions in appropriate settings.
Share only information reasonably relevant to the purpose of the communication.
Avoid distributing an entire case history when a concise summary is sufficient.
Exercise particular care with financial, health-related, and other sensitive information.
Use reasonable administrative and technological safeguards for information under our control.
Avoid maintaining unnecessary copies of external medical records or other sensitive documents.
Apply a minimum-necessary approach when communicating information outside Love INC.

Human Oversight

Technology does not determine whether a neighbor receives assistance from Love INC.

AI-generated or AI-assisted information may help staff and volunteers organize facts, identify possibilities, conduct research, or prepare information for review. Appropriate Love INC personnel remain responsible for evaluating that information and determining what action, communication, referral, or follow-up is appropriate.

Human responsibility remains at the center of our process.

Our Commitment

Love INC of Shelby County is committed to:

Respecting the dignity of every neighbor.
Protecting personal and sensitive information entrusted to us.
Using information for legitimate service and coordination purposes.
Limiting unnecessary disclosure.
Using reasonable safeguards appropriate to our role as a community nonprofit.
Using technology and artificial intelligence responsibly and with human oversight.
Responding to needs as effectively and promptly as reasonably possible.
Strengthening cooperation through community alliances.
Preserving human relationships as the foundation for trust and long-term change.

Our objective is not simply to process requests more efficiently.

It is to use our people, information, technology, resources, and community relationships wisely so that we can respond effectively to immediate needs while creating opportunities for the trusting relationships that can help change lives.

For information concerning our website, communications, donations, SMS messaging, and general information practices, please see our Privacy Policy.