Interoperability And Behavioral Health: An Evaluating Scenario

Due to all the stress and tensions, people are facing during this hard time, they might need some medical assistance for both physical and behavioral/mental troubles they have.

It is very hard to face these alone. They might need a hand to help them fight these anxiety issues. Physical problems can be easily solved by just visiting a doctor and treating the conditions. But mental health can only be cherished.

People with mental illness might not come forward in public to avail services provided for them.

For reaching these people, or for them to reach the services from within the comfortability of their pirate place/home, some service platforms and importantly some exchange of electronic information is needed.

RELATED: DATA SHARING IN HEALTHCARE: A KEY TOWARDS INTEROPERABILITY

Behavioral Health And Interoperability

The consequent habits which affect our general well-being, emotions, biology, and behavior generally refer to behavioral health. It is often confused or interchangeably used with mental health. But it is a more wide-ranged term that integrates not just our mental wellness, but the paths or ways through which our mind travels in real life.

To provide effective client and patient treatments, medical and mental health information should be easily accessible. Easy access to this information and data can result in long-lasting outputs for the treatments given.

According to Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), healthcare data interoperability is “the ability of different information technology systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and use the information that has been exchanged”.

Traditionally, the data and information collected to provide services to the patients are done manually. Lots of paper works involved in the process which resulted in lots of mistakes, errors, and dissatisfaction. It was tedious work that demanded a team of people and quality time.

In this 21st century, some physicians and small organizations are following the traditional method. But it’s not so practical when it comes to big healthcare organizations.

Now, people can visit any doctor through digital platforms without stress and the services are available without any geographical barriers. This is only possible because of the availability and exchange of data from one physician to another through electronic exchange. 

To provide maximum care requires the exchange of data electronically with other healthcare providers. This is also called the participation in a Health Information Exchange (HIE), often referred to as interoperability.

Healthcare interoperability requires the exchange of data securely and timely among labs, hospitals, pharmacies, clinicians, and clients. This system helps healthcare providers to avoid geographical barriers to sharing information. This increases the quality of care delivered to patients and clients.

Due to the different functions of behavioral health and physical health departments, there is no significant and sufficient data exchange among the providers.

To encourage the development of more equal, affordable, and efficient healthcare terrains, and to rectify the above-mentioned issue, federal initiatives and legislation are being employed.

For doing this, there are many challenges to be crossed to address, before the behavioral healthcare providers can accomplish cooperative data exchange.

Challenges Of Not Utilizing Interoperability

• If a provider does not participate in a health information exchange (HIE), the client and patient well-being can be placed in danger.
• Interoperability ensures the availability of electronic health records (EHR). If a patient health record is not available, providers may be forced to again follow the traditional methods of collecting and recording patient history and data manually.
• This is a waste of time again.
• This may lead to treatments based on insignificant data available with them. It may also lead to prescribing ineffective medications to the patients.
• This costs the client, providers, and the insurance companies a huge amount of time and money.
• Healthcare reforms may call for improvement in care delivery according to the individual patient’s diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up procedures.
• The healthcare providers might experience difficulties when trying to meet federal and state standards for care delivery if they do not participate in an HIE.

Benefits Of Interoperable EHR Software

After knowing some of the challenges, the providers may be slightly encouraged for integrating interoperable Electronic Health Record (EHR) Software. Using interoperability in behavioral health leads to the following benefits.

• Interoperability and data exchange provides numerous benefits to the provider.
• The clinicians can have easy access to the medication, clinical information, and prescription history of a patient.
• This does not include their findings alone. They can also access information from, other healthcare providers, too.
• Quick decision-making for treatments and emergency conditions can be done using interoperability. 
• It reduces the time for care delivery.
• When systems are interoperable, there is only a little chance of making errors by the providers.
• It reduces the cost of operation to the providers.

Conclusion

Interoperability is very essential when it comes to healthcare. It will become more important to use interoperability in the future because every sector is adapting to the changes of the digital world. Electronic exchanges will be used to provide quality service without any obstacles.

We at CapMinds, provide sophisticated integration services. Our integrated healthcare solutions enhance communication and collaboration among healthcare providers in the U.S. Contact us through the link given below and we will let you know the product which can help your practice to achieve higher standards.

“Let’s make your interoperability easy and secure, together”