An effective system is :person-centered, prioritizes those with the greatest need without precondition, includes all sub-populations and is coordinated such that wherever individuals seeking services enter, they will be able to participate in the same assessment and linkage process where providers use a uniform decision-making approach.

As communities have begun implementation efforts, we have learned that coordinated assessment is not only a best practice for serving consumers and a way to more efficiently use available resources, but also is an excellent tool to shift agency and single-service minded thinking to holistic service provision and overall community need.