Source Authority
Who should have authority to approve operating metrics when senior living software systems disagree?
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Direct answer
The executive accountable for the decision the metric supports. Typically the CFO approves figures used for owner reporting and finance, the COO or executive director approves figures used for staffing and operations, and the clinical leader approves clinical measures. Write those assignments down per metric and purpose, and name a delegate for each.
The executive view
Authority should follow accountability, not system ownership. The person who answers to the owner or regulator for a number should be the one who approves it. Software administrators maintain systems; they should not be the default decision-makers about which number governs.
Why this happens
Without written assignments, whoever builds the report effectively decides, and that person is rarely accountable for the outcome.
The same metric can serve different purposes, so authority may differ: census for staffing and census for billing can have different approvers.
Hypothetical example: authority assignments for one metric
Census for owner reporting
CFO
Accountable to owners
Census for staffing
Executive director
Accountable for staffing
Census for clinical acuity
Director of nursing
Accountable for care
Delegates
Named per role
Recorded in the register
- Evidence
- Disagreement
- Authority
- Operator-Controlled Operating Record
- Intelligence
- Execution
Illustrative figures. Coherence before Intelligence.
Illustrative assignments. Each operator sets its own; the principle is that authority follows accountability.
The governance question
Authority is an organizational decision that software should record, not invent. When the authoritative source is wrong, the right response is a documented override with the original value preserved, not a silent edit.
Evidence → Disagreement → Authority → Operator-Controlled Operating Record → SeniorCRE Intelligence → Execution
What good operating infrastructure should do
- Per-field, per-decision authority rules approved by named owners.
- Visible authority: users can see which source governs a number.
- Override workflows that capture reason, approver and time.
- Original values preserved after every override.
- Periodic review of authority rules as systems change.
SeniorCRE perspective
SeniorCRE’s architecture records authority as a rule the operator approves, applies it when sources disagree, and keeps the overridden value with its reason and approver. Software can recommend; only the operator’s authority decides what governs. Status: the Operator-Controlled Operating Record is designed and not yet implemented in any community. Current capability states and production-entry gates are published in the Evidence Record at the Trust Center; nothing here should be read as a production result.