Edifecs E

Edifecs

Posted on October 28, 2024 | 4 min read

How Interoperability Can Improve Mental Health Care Delivery

Categories:

Consumer Experience

Healthcare Data

Regulatory Compliance

Share Post

How Interoperability Can Improve Mental Health Care Delivery

Research conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Health found that one in five adults in the United States live with mental health issues, and the demand for services continues to grow. The American Psychological Association found that psychologist referrals doubled in 2021, with 4 in 10 psychologists stating they are unable to meet demand for treatment and 46% reporting feelings of burnout due to working at or beyond capacity.

Despite an increase in demand, more than half of people do not seek mental health treatment due to stigma, prejudice, and discrimination. However, those issues are not the only barriers to treatment: a 2018 study by the American Psychological Association found that cost is the top reason people do not seek mental health treatment. Accessibility is also a significant problem, with the Health Resources & Services Administration reporting a shortage of over 6,000 mental health practitioners across the nation.

While healthcare information technology (HIT) companies cannot directly affect these specific challenges, they can reduce or eliminate some of the technical barriers to accessing mental health services. As an example, advances in telehealth technology have helped increase the number of patients receiving mental health services, which has helped bridge some of the accessibility gaps. A recent study by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 80% of clinics surveyed are now offering telehealth care.

Interoperability and Mental Health Services

One the primary goals for the creation of the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule (CMS-0057-F) is to improve access to health data for payers, providers, and patients. Improved data access can address some of the issues associated with receiving mental health care by helping to:

  • Reduce Intervention Time: Real-time data access allows mental health providers to better monitor the condition of a patient and deliver more informed care, which is especially vital when emergency mental health services are needed
  • Support Personalized Treatment: When clinicians have access to the latest information and understand a patient’s treatment history across the care continuum, they can make better-informed decisions, customize patient care, and improve outcomes
  • Improve Care Coordination: Ensuring that all clinicians involved in a patient’s care can easily access the patient’s medical data enhances care delivery, quality, and coordination—particularly when working as a multidisciplinary team
  • Provide Accurate Consent Compliance: Ensuring the latest consent information is always available to providers so they know how patient health data can be used and shared is essential due to the sensitive nature of mental health patient information. A poorly executed consent management process can lead to delays in care approval, miscommunications between providers, and non-compliance with patient care directives
  • Empower Patients: Having timely access to their medical data allows patients to play a more active and informed role in their care decisions

Overall, successful interoperability will enhance the responsiveness, personalization, and efficiency of mental health services, leading to better patient outcomes and more effective care delivery.

Technology Challenges Affecting Mental Health Services

While interoperability can help reduce care barriers, implementation may be more complex for mental health facilities compared to other healthcare organizations. The primary hurdle is the specialized electronic health record (EHR) systems used by mental health providers. Mental health EHRs were designed to accommodate workflows unique to mental health services, such as the documentation of psychological assessments, individual and group therapy sessions, and treatment plans. These systems and their proprietary data formats are necessary to support mental health care delivery, but their specificity can inhibit exchange of data with conventional EHRs. In these instances, mental health data will need to be translated into standard EHR formats to allow the systems to communicate effectively.

Accessing mental health data across clinicians and systems can also be a challenge. Numerous systems are needed to support the full patient care continuum. While these systems may work well for their intended purposes, they don’t always integrate their data with other systems—even those within the same organization. Additionally, some states have implemented more stringent rules covering mental health data and require special authorizations beyond typical health care data protections, creating an additional challenge for sharing certain types of information. This siloing of data prevents providers from having a complete view of a patient’s care history and may result in treatment decisions being made based on incomplete information, especially concerning mental health. The implementation of a healthcare data repository that combines patient data in a central location abd complies with mental health data requirements will help ensure mental health data is accessible by all authorized clinicians.

Consent management is also a concern. Patients must be fully informed about how their data will be used, and they must have the ability to choose which types of information to share depending on the provider or facility type. As an example, patients may allow their primary care provider to access their medication history but deny access to their therapy notes. Patients must also have easy access to consent documentation so they can approve or revoke permissions whenever needed. A consent management system must also ensure consent is accessible in various situations, such as when a patient receives services at multiple facilities or moves to a new state.

How HIT Solutions Can Support Mental Health Care

Advances in healthcare technology have improved how mental health care is delivered, but access to these services continues to lag behind other areas of healthcare. Many of the underlying issues creating barriers to care may be outside of the influence of HIT companies. Nevertheless, opportunities exist for these organizations to improve how care is delivered by standardizing the format of EHR data, removing data silos, and implementing a robust consent management system. By helping improve the exchange of data, HIT organizations can give clinicians and patients access to the data they need when they need it to make informed care decisions that lead to better patient outcomes.


Subscribe to our Blog

Receive notifications of new blog posts directly to your inbox.