The 10-Point Checklist for Selecting a Behavioral Health EHR
Electronic health records systems have become an integral part of behavioral health practice. However, there are many general EHR systems available in the marketplace.
Only by proper research, you can select the, you can able to choose the right one that meets your behavioral health practice.
“When selecting an EHR system for your practice, look out for its features”
If you are searching for the best EHR system for your behavioral health practice, this blog post will guide you. We have shared the 10-point checklist you need to consider while selecting behavioral health EHR.
What is Behavioral Health EHR?
The Electronic Health Records system (EHR) is a digital version of traditional paper records of patients. There are times when healthcare practices used to store paper-based health records in store rooms which makes it difficult to access.
Switching to an EHR system makes it easier to store, manage, and organize patient records, and ensures readily available at any time. For behavioral health, the EHR system is specially designed to meet the unique needs and requirements of the behavioral health practice.
More than general EHR, behavioral health EHR helps to make the workflow easier for Psychiatrists and care teams. Utilizing behavioral health EHR can benefit in many ways:
- Easy access to patient health data that is required for behavioral health diagnosis.
- You can streamline your administrative tasks like appointment scheduling, patient portals, and billing & coding.
- Using pre-built forms and templates, you can save more time associated with paper works.
Read More: How Dermatology EHR Helps in Precise Diagnosis and Treatment Tracking
Behavioral Health EHR Market Value
Behavioral Health EHR holds a huge value market size. The US Behavioral Health EHR market size was valued at $176.2 Million in 2021 and is expected to grow at an annual growth rate (CAGR of 11.07%) from 2022 to 2030.
The market is being driven primarily by greater government efforts to increase healthcare IT adoption among healthcare facilities and growing awareness among mental health practitioners about the benefits of electronic health records (EHR).
Clinicians can now utilize the same EHR software not just to store patient data, but also for telemedicine, e-prescribing, clinical evaluation documentation, and other clinical and administrative tasks with technological innovation.
This, together with specialized demand for behavioral care techniques, is driving market expansion.
10 Point Checklike While Choosing Behavioral Health EHR
- Meets Behavioral Health Practice Needs
Does the EHR system cater to specific behavioral health practice workflow? Consider if it meets your practice workflow is one thing that you need to look out for.
The EHR system must meet the specific workflows: Therapists, Psychiatrists, and counselors.
Also, look out for features for scheduling different types of appointments, managing care plans for specific conditions, and tracking progress through assessments.
- User-Friendly System
Not all software users are tech experts. So, look out for a Behavioral Health EHR system that has a simple, clean, uncluttered interface for easy navigation for clinicians.
Additionally, the EHR system also has pre-made templates, drop-down menus, and dictation capabilities for charting and progress note creation.
Also, the EHR system should allow clinicians to customize dashboards with frequently used features and customize note templates for their preferred documentation style
- Integration Capabilities
Can the EHR integrate seamlessly with existing billing software and scheduling software? Make sure the behavioral health EHR system you were choosing has Integration capabilities. This will ensure a seamless workflow without any disruption.
Also, you need to consider that the EHR system has an Open API (application programming interface) which allows it to integrate with third-party applications like telehealth.
- Customization
The EHR system needs to be customizable to match your specific needs and the specialties of your clinicians. An easily customizable EHR system makes it easier to seamlessly integrate with existing workflow.
In this way, you can ensure no disruption.
The Behavioral Health EHR system also allows you to customize progress notes, intake forms, treatment plan outlines, and discharge summaries to reflect your documentation formats.
More than customizable, you also need to ensure that the EHR system allows you to create your forms and questionaries for patient intake assessments tailored to a specific clinical approach.
- Customizable Reporting
For reporting, the EHR system should offer a variety of pre-built reports on patient demographics, diagnoses, treatment progress, and outcomes. Also, ensures that the EHR system allows you to customize reports to meet individual or regulatory requirements.
This way, you can improve the quality initiatives. The EHR system should enable you to export different formats like CSV or PDF, and easily shareable with other healthcare providers.
- Training & Support
Maybe selecting the EHR system is not a big deal, by adopting it for your practice workflow can be difficult. That’s why you should choose a reputable EHR vendor.
The EHR Vendor must offer comprehensive training and support for clinicians and staff. This way, you can ensure experiencing the full potential and capability of behavioral health EHR system.
There are chances that the EHR system may have any troubleshooting issues or technical issues. So, they must provide ongoing support for the end-users to avoid any conflict.
- Features and Functionalities Specifically for Behavioral Health
Additional features like appointment reminders, text message communication tools (with patient consent), and secure patient portal access to view lab results, questionnaires, and medication schedules should be included in the behavioral health EHR system.
Some behavioral health patients, require remote care because of social anxiety. So, the EHR system must include telehealth-like video conferencing appointments for remote patient care.
- Makes HIPAA Compliance Easier
Does the EHR have robust security features? It is necessary to safeguard patient privacy and comply with HIPAA regulations, such as encryption, access controls, and audit trails.
The behavioral health EHR system must offer role-based access control to ensure only authorized users with the appropriate level of clearance can access.
Additionally, you also need to ensure that the EHR vendor provides regular security audits to identify potential vulnerabilities.
- Built-In Forms and Templates
Behavioral health practice documentation is different from others and it is time-consuming. Make sure that the EHR system has a comprehensive library of pre-made forms and templates commonly used for behavioral health assessments.
Also, ensure that the behavioral health EHR system allows you to customize the forms and templates to fit your workflow and specific documentation style.
- Encounter Management
Documenting patient encounters is crucial. The EHR system must have efficient tools for documenting patient encounters, including progress notes, session summaries, and treatment interventions.
Additionally, it should allow you to easily track the diagnosis and medications within the patient records. Also, ensure the system enables capturing outcome measures and progress tracking over time.
Read More: 3 Ways Vozo EHR Can Transform Your Ambulatory Care Practice
Vozo EHR for Behavioral Health Practice
Though many Mental Health EHR solutions are available on the internet, Vozo stands in the separate line by offering exceptional solutions for Mental Healthcare Professionals.
Vozo has a wide range of key features like an advanced user-friendly interface, seamless integration with mental health tools, accurate reporting, and analytics, specialized templates for mental health, etc…
Our exceptional solution for All Levels of Mental Healthcare Practice;
- Vozo has an advanced user-friendly interface, even non-techy healthcare professionals and staff members can handle and manage it with ease.
- Our Support team will cover your back 24/7, whenever you need technical support, our team will assist you.
- Vozo’s Subscription plan is budget-friendly and benefits all levels of healthcare practices.
- Data Migration to the Vozo EHR system is made easy, yet our support team will assist you.
- We provide comprehensive training and ongoing support for healthcare professionals and staff members.
- Vozo complies with regulatory standards and ensures high data safety and security.
“Empower Vozo’s Mental Health EHR Solution for Mental Health Patients Outcomes. Sign up and get a free demo“
About the author
With more than 4 years of experience in the dynamic healthcare technology landscape, Sid specializes in crafting compelling content on topics including EHR/EMR, patient portals, healthcare automation, remote patient monitoring, and health information exchange. His expertise lies in translating cutting-edge innovations and intricate topics into engaging narratives that resonate with diverse audiences.
