In a an article recently published by HIT Consultant, Albert L. Roberts, BSN, RN CSM, UXC and Clinical Systems Analyst II at Juno Health, asserted that behavioral health providers need to leave behind outdated EHRs that weren’t designed for behavioral health and that often hinder, rather than improve, care delivery.
In the article, Roberts reiterated previous points made by Juno Health, illustrating how behavioral health requires collaboration across departments, teams, and disciplines, and how next-generation EHRs can provide the visibility and coordination necessary to facilitate that level of cooperation.
When discussing the current state of behavioral health EHR use, Roberts cited findings from two studies that investigated the impact of EHRs on information practices in behavioral health contexts. These findings showed that while EHR use in behavioral health lagged behind that of other healthcare practice areas, when used, it improved the amount of information documented compared to using paper.
Increased data capture is good in theory, except that the shortcomings of traditional EHRs that were not designed for behavioral health caused challenges as well. Let’s look at some of those challenges and how Juno EHR for Behavioral Health can help overcome them.
Juno EHR for Behavioral Health is purpose built for behavioral health organizations and allows system-wide customization governed at the organizational level. Your in-house team can easily make changes by facility, department, or role. With this level of personalization, documentation captures all vital points of data, without redundancies or irrelevant fields.
Our behavioral health EHR includes more than 150 behavioral health assessments and templates, extensive treatment plan options, and helpful features like Group Notes, and Session Manager to make collecting the right information easy.
Juno EHR for Behavioral Health allows the restriction of access to sensitive information, including substance abuse data, psychotherapy notes, and information related to abuse. Data capture is codified, so data in your system can be safely used for predictive analytics, forecasting, and analysis, while protecting patient privacy.
Roberts went on to write about the advancements in functionality that next-generation EHRs offer, and how they facilitate in creating and maintaining the “Golden Thread” of documentation throughout the patient journey. Juno EHR for Behavioral Health delivers on these functions in the following ways:
Juno EHR ensures patient safety through proper documentation that includes all necessary points of data to satisfy CMS guidelines.
Juno EHR includes unprecedented customization tools like the Clinical Content Builder that allows you to create personalized templates for various notes and assessments. This enables you to tailor workflows to your organization’s unique needs.
Our behavioral health EHR is built so data follows the patient throughout the continuum of care, including scheduling, treatment plans, session notes, and more. And Juno EHR for Behavioral Health allows everyone on the care team to add, access, and review notes for individuals or groups along the way.
Comprehensive scheduling tools allow schedulers to involve patients in their treatments, accommodate preferences, avoid conflicts between patients, and properly allocate staff where needed.
As Roberts asserted in his article, when all these features are included in a next-generation solution like Juno EHR, all involved caregivers can contribute to a patient’s documentation inside the system, instead of through external communication. This allows collaboration between everyone on the care team, without risk of losing information or fragmentation.
Ready to learn more? We’d love to give you a more personal look at Juno EHR for Behavioral Health. You’ll discover how an EHR designed for today's behavioral health needs and built to be ready for tomorrow will make you want to leave solutions built in the twentieth century behind.