7 Characteristics Every Behavioral Health EHR Must Have
Electronic health records, or EHR, software is used by both small and big medical offices to maintain track of patient information and identify broad trends in the community they serve. A behavioral health EHR application is essential for healthcare professionals that specialize in behavioral health.
A generic EHR programme that you have neglected to modify is the last thing you want to burden your personnel with. Finding a committed behavioral health EHR software developer with a strong track record of maintaining and improving its application is a better option than attempting to reinvent the wheel.
Here are six behavioral health EHR must-have features to keep in mind when choosing the programme you’ll be using.
1. Behavioural Health EHR with Telehealth Capabilities
The unique coronavirus that causes COVID-19 infections has put a tremendous amount of strain on the entire world’s population. It is obvious that this continues to negatively impact patients with behavioral health. Healthcare professionals started adopting telehealth tools to conduct virtual patient contacts so they could visit with patients even during lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders.
To keep your staff and patients as healthy as possible during communicable disease outbreaks, your behavioral health EHR should include telehealth sessions since they are here to stay.
2. Strong Security
It is difficult to predict the chaos that would result from computer hackers breaking into your system, but suffice it to say that your practice’s reputation would be destroyed and you would be held liable for all of the patient files and sensitive data the hackers disclosed. This is why it’s crucial that your BH EHR is designed with the most up-to-date and robust security measures available right now.
3. Mental Wellness Frequent Software Upgrades Are Provided By The EHR Developer
Your clinic does not want to be forced to use behavioral health EHR software from a vendor who is not on top of code updates. The programme requires regular medical billing audits and updates in order to stay protected from hacker attacks because security concerns are a constant potential threat. Additionally, the EHR for your BH patients needs to be up to date with industry and governmental laws so you can stay compliant and adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the law.
4. Adherence to the most recent laws and regulations
You will unavoidably share a lot of sensitive data with several doctors while caring for a single behavioral health service for patients .
As over 65% of BH patients have underlying chronic disorders that require concurrent therapy, you might send your patient in to be evaluated for hypertension or diabetes, for instance. There is always a chance that you will recommend BH patients to an internal medicine doctor or a neurology expert. doctor of medicine. HL7, which stands for Health Seven International and is a globally recognised standard for protecting safety when transferring patient data, states that the software must adhere to its requirements.
So, your behavioral health EHR configuration should be created and updated to constantly be in compliance with the law.
5. BH-Related Forms, Documentation, and Data Fields
Your team must be diligent in how it creates, maintains, and keeps the documentation for each patient. So, your software should unquestionably feature categories for mental health data that third-party providers and accreditation organizations can utilize to evaluate your clinic and its operations.
When compared to paperwork that must be submitted to a community treatment center or a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, the types of information and documentation you must present to a psychiatrist will differ.
6. Real-time, multi-provider access to patient files
As was mentioned, numerous medical professionals may work together to treat a single BH patient. As a result, the behavioral health EHR software that you use should permit access from numerous providers. For the information to be valuable to the many staff members, it must be current and updated frequently.
It makes sense for many BH healthcare providers to include a cloud computing component in their EHR software so that anyone with an internet-connected device may simply access it.
7. Quick and efficient electronic prescriptions and laboratory orders
You don’t want to keep the personnel waiting around for a patient to complete their laboratory testing. Thus the behavioral health EHR you choose should have a built-in feature for lab orders. Making patients wait while the pharmacist fills their prescriptions is also undesirable. Your doctors must be able to create electronic prescriptions using the BH electronic health record programme.
They bypass the need for people to submit a paper prescription and wait for it to be filled and instead go directly to the pharmacist. When the patient is traveling from the BH doctor’s office, the pharmacy can complete the order.
There is no better time than now to benefit from the most recent behavioral health EHR software.
You are failing your team and your patients if your behavioral health practice operates without the support of a reliable behavioral health EHR system and merely uses a generic type of electronic health records.
It is preferable to utilize the resources that are most suitable for the task at hand, such as software created especially to meet the needs of BH professionals. The first step in choosing behavioural health EHR software is to be aware of these essential qualities. But, if you need help adopting or utilizing a BH-focused EHR, get in touch with us right away.