by Mike Lardieri, LCSW on August 27, 2024
In behavioral healthcare, there’s no shortage of committed providers who go the extra mile for individuals with mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
With increasingly varied and urgent client needs as well as increases in the number of individuals requiring treatment and support, certified community behavioral health clinics (CCBHCs) have emerged to address clients’ behavioral and physical health, while simultaneously accounting for sociocultural context.
Heeding the call for holistic care requires having a firm grasp on the demands it places on providers and securing technological solutions tailored for CCBHCs’ work. The right electronic health record (EHR) can help carry out complex care by providing the tools, data, and insights needed to implement evidence-based practices — and collectively improve client outcomes and experiences.
Critical Areas Requiring Strategic Care Delivery and Treatment
Implementing the right evidence-based practices for behavioral and physical healthcare in local communities can be difficult, even within systems like the CCBHC model that are designed to provide coordinated, high-quality care.
There are numerous areas in which caring more completely for clients with mental health and substance use disorders and those in the IDD population requires careful planning and may necessitate close alignment with multiple evidence-based practices across providers, including:
Prioritizing Preventive Care
Screening regularly for chronic conditions and offering accessible education to clients has been shown to significantly improve outcomes and help clients better engage with providers. One study found that preventive care reduces recurrences of substance use and mental health conditions while promoting overall healthy living.
Key preventive care practices include health and behavior assessment and intervention (HBAI) services that address behavioral, social, and psychophysiological conditions alongside physical health challenges and screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) for substance use treatment. SBIRT is a form of early intervention, evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders that assesses and supports at-risk individuals in a variety of care settings.
Engaging Clients Holistically
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says that whole-person health “involves looking at the whole person — not just separate organs or body systems — and considering multiple factors that promote either health or disease. It means helping and empowering individuals, families, communities, and populations to improve their health in multiple interconnected biological, behavioral, social, and environmental areas.” Studies show that whole-person care improves sleep, pain management practices, nutrition, depression symptoms, and mental well-being.
Effectively engaging clients is often facilitated by peer support services, where individuals with lived experience of mental health or substance use disorders provide support and facilitate whole-person care.
Integrating Care Services
The CCBHC model provides a broad array of services and support and integrates with primary care. In Missouri, this integrated service management led to a 20% dip in hospitalization rates, a 36% drop in emergency department visits, and a 23% increase in mental health service usage, according to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
Responding to Population-Specific Needs
Social determinants of health (SDOH) — or the societal, regional, and identity-based conditions in which people live — affect as much as 50% of county-level variation in health outcomes, according to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation Office of Health Policy. Understanding trends among specific demographics enables CCBHCs and their partners to employ evidence-based practices and meet individual health-related social needs (HRSN) more effectively. It’s critical for CCBHCs to screen for HRSNs and coordinate with community health workers, who link local populations to services and provide education.
EHR Capabilities That Enhance Robust, Comprehensive Care
Taken together, the evidence-based practices highlighted above improve the quality of whole-person healthcare, and CCBHCs are in a unique position to employ and deploy them. But an advanced EHR — like Core Solutions’ Cx360 platform — enables CCBHCs to do this more efficiently, consistently, and effectively by providing communication and data tools that drive life-changing outcomes.
1. Better Care Coordination Across Provider
One essential aspect of whole-person care involves creating seamless transitions between different providers in a client’s journey. If providers lack key insights about a client, they’re unable to truly personalize care.
The Cx360 platform fosters the communication and coordination needed to quickly deploy whole-person care. Consider this scenario: A client tells their primary care provider (PCP) about a substance use relapse. Using the platform, the PCP quickly coordinates scheduling with a CCBHC and rehabilitation facility, effectively handing off care. After receiving a notification and text message via a customized workflow in the platform, rehab providers access past treatment plans, assessment results, and doctor notes to ensure they’re current on the client’s needs.
When the client arrives at the rehab facility, they’re met with providers who already understand the client’s history and needs and are well-equipped to collaborate with 988 crisis teams and any other caregivers to deliver evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders.
By giving providers and clients a central source for communication and data access, Cx360 enables teams to collectively integrate services to deliver complete care.
2. Stronger Insights for Preventive Care and Socially Driven Needs
Preventive care depends on real-time data. Without it, CCBHC providers are left in the dark about their clients’ individual and population-based needs.
The Core Clinician Assist: Symptom Tracking tool helps solve this challenge by analyzing massive datasets, provider charts, and caregiver notes to identify behavioral health symptoms across clients and specific populations. What’s more, the tool connects those symptoms to possible diagnoses and comorbidities, enabling CCBHC providers to make faster, more accurate assessments and address conditions as early as possible. The solution also comes embedded in the Cx360 platform, helping improve personalized, holistic treatment planning — which is particularly helpful for complex cases.
Similarly, the AI-powered Core Clinician Assist: HRSN Tracking tool gives providers the ability to track HRSN to identify barriers to care and population-based needs earlier. With this data, providers can make proactive recommendations, better address social challenges that impede clients’ access to care, and provide more targeted, culturally competent, and evidence-based care.
3. More Effective Whole-Person Care and Client Engagement
Having data and insights at their fingertips gives providers tools for implementing whole-person care. But those insights only go so far if clients aren’t engaged in the care process. Cx360 facilitates much-needed communication and collaboration.
Through the platform, for example, CCBHC providers can send educational materials to help clients better understand their conditions and treatment plans. These materials can be tailored to the methods and channels that clients prefer, which is particularly helpful for engaging the IDD population, who may require unique delivery formats.
The platform also allows clients to access peer support services, schedule appointments, participate in clinical decision-making, and use telehealth services directly through their dashboard.
CCBHC Technology Powering Evidence-Based Practices
The CCBHC model is built on core principles of personalized, holistic, and highly effective care. And while CCBHC providers are already making considerable strides in these areas, a custom EHR solution can enhance their ability to implement evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders and mental health conditions and tailor care to IDD populations. Ultimately, this technology helps CCBHCs do what they do best: save lives.
Contact us today to learn more about how the Cx360 platform facilitates the whole-person care your clients deserve.
