by Rachna Bagdi on December 3, 2024
A disturbing increase in U.S. children and teens’ mental health needs over the past several years “is at risk of overwhelming the system,” the president and CEO of Nemours Children’s Health, Lawrence Moss, told Chief Healthcare Executive in late 2023.
The ongoing pediatric behavioral health crisis is placing an unbearable burden on providers as well as stressed-out, overworked parents, and its reach extends into multiple areas of care.
While efforts at the national, state, and local levels to improve children’s behavioral healthcare are crucial to addressing this emergency, policy approvals can take months or years. On the other hand, technological solutions can more quickly enhance care delivery and have a positive impact on provider mental health.
Pediatric Behavioral Health Statistics Are a Cause for Alarm
Although many onlookers might think that high numbers of mental health disorders and related conditions in young people are attributable to the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown during key developmental periods in children’s lives, rates of anxiety and depression in kids and adolescents rose 27% and 24%, respectively, from 2016 to 2019. Since then, the situation has continued to be troubling. Consider these statistics:
- About 4.5 million adolescents in the U.S. between the ages of 12 and 17 had a major depressive episode between 2022 and 2023, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
- Around one in five teens also had a substance use disorder (SUD), said SAMHSA.
- The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows one in 11 kids was diagnosed with autism or an intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) between 2019 and 2021, and incidences of developmental disabilities in U.S. youths ages 3 to 17 rose sharply during that time from 7.4% to about 8.6%.
Problems and Concerns Around Pediatric Behavioral Health Care
The sad truth underlying the mental and emotional turmoil facing the nation’s youth is that its impact radiates beyond the walls of behavioral health facilities, and the complicated nature of how it arises may mean that not tackling it intelligently can have lasting consequences for not only population health, but overall prosperity for society as the children in the eye of the storm grow up. Some of the more critical issues that have contributed to the crisis or been exacerbated by it are themselves complex and urgent.
Lack of Providers and Limited Insurance Coverage
To say there’s a shortage of pediatric behavioral health providers in the United States would be a dramatic understatement. As of 2022, there were just >14 child and adolescent psychiatrists per 100,000 children. This can be attributed to several factors, including funding restrictions, lackluster reimbursement rates, and an aging workforce that’s not being replaced by younger workers due to concerns about low provider compensation and the likelihood of burnout.
Access to care has also been limited by a lack of state laws requiring behavioral health insurance coverage and clear definitions of what must be covered, like IDD services and autism assessments. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found that parents and caregivers of children in need of mental health services were 20% less likely to report trouble securing care in states with laws mandating coverage.
Deficient Behavioral Health Training and Integration Into Primary Care
Without enough pediatric behavioral health professionals for pediatricians to consult with or refer clients to, young clients are placed at risk of poor care continuity, suboptimal care coordination, and a lack of targeted, appropriate interventions. Only one in three pediatricians in the U.S. say they have enough training to fairly diagnose and treat children with mental disorders on their own, and with provider shortages still an industrywide problem, they lack the time to deliver screenings and services that fall outside their wheelhouse.
Though the results can be impressive when health systems and hospitals integrate pediatric behavioral health providers into primary care practices, these models also face obstacles, like difficulties adjusting workflows, coordinating care, and providing adequate spaces in which to work.
Parent Mental Health and the Influence of Caregiver Relationships
Citing statistics that parents have higher stress levels than other adults (33% of parents reported high stress versus 20% of non-parents), the surgeon general recently distributed an advisory calling for more support for parents’ mental health and well-being.
Today’s parents have many of the same worries and concerns as their predecessors, such as keeping their kids safe, being able to afford rising costs of living, and ensuring their children have a better life than they did, but among the more recent things contributing to their own poor mental health are gun violence, the dangers of social media, and fears about rising cases of depression, drug use, and suicide in young people.
Family behavioral health has come under the microscope not only for how children’s mental health impacts their parents’ well-being but also how infants and young children develop emotionally based on their caregivers’ influence and mental health, according to experts cited in an article on the topic by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Inequities and Disparities Across Multiple Population Groups
Studies show that children in racial and ethnic minorities, particularly Black and Hispanic kids, are less likely than their White peers to use services for behavioral health conditions despite a higher prevalence of those conditions in their communities. These children, as well as those facing socioeconomic disadvantages and challenges based on their immigrant status, are susceptible to disparities in health outcomes.
Adolescents in sexual and gender minorities, including members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (LGBTQ) community, likewise face external and internalized barriers to care access that put them at alarmingly higher odds of attempting suicide.
The Increasingly Instrumental Role of Advanced EHRs
While there’s no single solution to guarantee the equitable and effective delivery of pediatric behavioral health care, as health technology has matured, it’s become capable of supporting beleaguered providers and caregivers in more ways than ever before and greatly helped increase client access and engagement. Advances in electronic health record (EHR) functionality have made these platforms particularly well-suited to enhancing operations, clinical care, and care coordination. Let's look at some of the top benefits of these increasingly essential technology systems.
Focused Data Collection and Child-/Adolescent-Specific Understanding
Manual, paper-based data capture is a time-consuming and error-prone process that can pull members of already-shorthanded clinical staff away from client care. Although it’s already been replaced across most service lines by EHRs, slower-to-adapt behavioral health and IDD organizations must make the switch. The Children’s EHR Format provides EHR developers and pediatric care providers with essential information to better support younger populations, including necessary functionality, data elements, and care requirements.
Enhanced Diagnostics for Behavioral Health Conditions
Psychologists on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently led a call for regular anxiety screenings for youths ages 8 to 18 and regular depression screenings for adolescents from 12 to 18 years of age. Using artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology like Core Clinician Assist: Symptom Tracking, which comes embedded in the Cx360 EHR from Core Solutions, pediatric behavioral health providers and primary care providers can streamline screenings and improve diagnoses for these and other disorders as well as conduct better IDD and autism assessments. Using natural language processing (NLP), the technology scans provider notes for hard-to-identify symptoms and connects them with potential diagnoses.
Comprehensive Family Record-Keeping
The top behavioral health and IDD EHRs can manage health records for multiple family members, ensuring that vital information and progress for both parents and their children can be accessed through a single view and case management for providers is simplified and tailored specifically to child and family behavioral health. Providers can communicate with parents to keep them engaged in their children’s development, conditions, and care plans, and schedule convenient telehealth appointments.
Real-Time Care Coordination
In addition to improving provider-caregiver communication, EHRs designed for pediatric behavioral health also help ensure that providers can seamlessly collaborate on care decisions when young clients are seen by multiple providers and case workers. In instances where personnel resources are stretched thin, care continuity and care coordination are better sustained by the ability for all stakeholders to see complete client histories and provider notes and to seek consultations and answers with in-platform chat, messaging, and notifications.
Screening for Health-Related Social Needs
To gain a true understanding of the conditions in which children grow up that can impact their broader behavioral health and identify the resulting health-related social needs (HRSN) that must be addressed, providers can use Core Clinician Assist: HRSN Tracking. This AI-powered tool in the Cx360 EHR provides HRSN information quickly at the point of care. It’s one solution that can help better engage youths in minority populations who may otherwise be hesitant to trust providers and reduce the increasing number of emergency room referrals that have been sending kids (disproportionately those in underserved communities) to languish in emergency departments.
Comprehensive Tools for Better Pediatric and Family Behavioral Health
Together, these and other benefits that advanced EHRs provide for family and pediatric behavioral health providers are making a decisive impact on the effectiveness of practices and facilities tasked with a mountain of pediatric mental health, substance use disorder, and IDD cases.
To learn more about how the many tools and functionality in Cx360 can support your operations and its pediatric clients, contact us today
