Behavioral Health Integrator

During the 4^th quarter (October to December) of 2022, there are two major health information technology (HIT) requirement changes, with potential for significant implications to health centers. Read this FAQ to find out how your health center can respond.

In recent years, health centers have become increasingly interested in and charged with not only addressing the health concerns of their patients, but centering and responding to patient’s social needs. According to Healthy People 2030, social needs, also known as the social determinants of health, are the conditions in the environments where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Social needs encompass the quality of and access to resources such as housing, transportation, safety, employment, food, and more. Identifying and addressing unmet social needs as part of the clinical encounter provides the opportunity to deliver higher-quality, whole-person care, advance population health, and reduce healthcare costs.

These graphs and tables use health center reported UDS data from 2014 through 2020 to identify the EHRs most frequently used among health center programs, and show the change between years.

The purpose of this guide is to help CHC leaders weigh the costs and benefits of remaining with their current EHR system (possibly with enhanced functionality) or switching to a different one. It is intended to be useful to all those participating in decisions about EHR systems, not just to technical experts. The guide offers a step-wise approach to asking important questions, making decisions, and moving forward. The appendices describe the types of products and services that are available to CHCs and that are mentioned throughout the guide.

As administrative responsibilities increase, clinical documentation is often the first task to end up suffering. The EHR has created additional administrative burdens on providers such as the need to perform data entry while trying to engage with the patient during the health care visit. Providers have become frustrated and distracted with the documentation requirements, which further hinder connection and communication with the patient. The American Medical Association (AMA) and other groups note that physician burnout is a systemic problem requiring examination and improvements in the system-of-care delivery. Medical record production technologies may be the key to achieving the goal of creating better and timely medical records, while at the same time increasing cost effectiveness. Studies have shown that the utilization of services like medical scribes or voice recognition strengthened the patient and provider experience and is associated with lower rates of burnout. Furthermore, there is evidence that despite the higher overhead costs, additional documentation services can increase clinician productivity, lower billing errors, and foster work-life balance, retention, and wellness.

The obvious demand has driven innovators to provide a solution, and has manifested in scribing tools and resources with distinct modalities, with varying balances between using human capital and technology. This resource assess the strengths and weaknesses of these tools to provide guidance to health centers.