Why EMR and why a collaborative?

In my recent discussions with our Ohio EMR Collaborative Team the question came up … “So why should behavioral health organizations have electronic medical records?” While the answers are obvious by now, it seems that many BH organizations are in a malaise of more questions and inaction. I shout out a few obvious ones: We can bill more efficiently, we can analyze our employee production more effectively, we can provide updated information from our physician offices to our 24/7 crisis services instantly, in our compliance plan we can check our compliance goals and provide accurate reinforcement or corrective action to our employees. Being long winded, I comment to the team of how nonprofit administrators remain frozen about a decision because of the risk; the risk of making a mistake.

Another team member asks, “Well then what are the challenges of having an EMR?" A colleague responds … there are costs for capital entry, employee support with ongoing training and expertise and infrastructure of equipment. I also add that there is confusion in the marketplace on traditional software models versus the SaaS model or “cloud model.” We hope to address most of these issues in the Ohio EMR Collaborative; by working together we can strategically plan for a successful future, we can share our technological and our clinical expertise and we can all stay competitive. There needs to be consolidation in our BH field; however, the Ohio EMR Collaborative will allow organizations to more effectively and efficiently provide electronic clinical records to our customers.