Improvements for Behavioral Healthcare At Your Fingertips

While my previous post focused its attention on the emphasis on primary healthcare at the recent HIMSS14 conference, it was not to discredit the opportunities within reach of the behavioral health industry and my many ideas and takeaways from this experience. I want to focus on the two that resonated the deepest with me – strategic use of data and Interoperability.

We are living in an era where data comes at us from every direction. Many are under the impression that quantity rules over all else; however, I walked away from HIMSS under a different set of ideas – quality data is the first step toward improved care. I sat in a session on an electronic intake initiative and saw how all of the information they were collecting had a distinct clinical use. We need to begin to recognize the value of useful information and learn from the successes of others in order to pinpoint trends within the industry as a whole. Something to also be cognizant of is “dashboards.” They are pretty and can be a very valuable tool, but if they are not customized to their user and organization, if they do not use the information in a productive manner, they can easily turn into clutter. In a similar vein, it is important to make sure you are using your report writing capacity in a beneficial way – reports without decision-making purposes become more of an obstruction than an aide. Mobility also plays a key role in the collection of data, especially in making your collection the most efficient it can be. Both primary and behavioral healthcare are moving further into the community and out of the office. Being mobile capable means the elimination of double data entry and offers real time updates to your client charts. All of these points combined means a new era for behavioral health, one with better outcomes and more efficient practices.