Collaboration Can Aid EHR Use and Adoption in Behavioral Health
Collaboration Can Aid EHR Use and Adoption in Behavioral Health
Perceived ease of EHR use and perceived usefulness of the technology itself are driving factors toward EHR adoption with physicians in behavioral health, according to a recent study. However, there is still resistance to EHR adoption within behavioral health, which could be eased through greater collaboration.
Working collaboratively to mitigate concerns about workflow burden can help improve attitudes toward EHR use, explained a study published in AHIMA’s Perspectives in Health Information Management. Additionally, collaboration can “demonstrate the value of EHRs to improve professional practice, efficiency, safety, effectiveness, and patient outcomes.”
“Despite the advances in and wide availability of health information technology, many behavioral healthcare clinicians have not adopted EHRs,” wrote Stephen Odom, PhD, and Kristen Willeumier, PhD.
“Beliefs about both the efficacy of EHRs and the extra layers of privacy rights for behavioral health records may be partly to blame for the slower adoption,” the duo continued. “Beliefs about the importance of the patient-to-therapist relationship may also make it difficult to accept EHR technology in the psychotherapy space.”
EHRs could play an important role in behavioral health, authors noted. For example, behavioral health physicians could share data with other medical providers. However, EHR use in this area has not seen the same amount of growth and adoption as other medical specialties…
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