Dive Brief:
- Many large hospital systems offer behavioral health services, but they don't typically customize their EMR for that department's needs, notes one blogger.
- Addressing mental health/substance abuse patient needs is critical, as one in eight of U.S. ED visitors—or 12 million ED visits—are due to such problems.
- To perform at their best, behavioral health clinicians need access to diagnostic tools and support for collaborative treatment planning with patients, the blogger argues.
Dive Insight:
Most hospitals seem to take the position that their enterprise EMR is sufficient for the needs of their entire inpatient clinical team. However, this blogger makes a strong case that behavioral health, at least, deserves more attention than it's getting from the IT department and hospital leadership. As it is, making money on psych units is tricky; it makes great sense to give these clinicians everything they need to be efficient. However, with IT managers bogged down with enterprise-level problems, it might be some time before this situation improves.