by Terence Blackwell Jr on April 22, 2025
Supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) requires organizations to use technologies that drive operational efficiencies and enable providers to do their best work. In an environment with complex workflows and growing provider demands, outdated electronic health records (EHRs), as well as paper-based systems, no longer meet the needs of providers or their IDD clients.
Instead, organizations need solutions with IDD-specific workflows and functionalities that reflect the unique nature of this service delivery. Here are six reasons outdated EHRs are no longer the best solution for organizations — and why it might be time for those with outdated technology to pursue an upgrade.
1. Your outdated EHR’s workflows don’t align with IDD-specific care delivery needs.
Key aspects of running an IDD organization, like completing assessments, building care plans, and generating task lists, work best when systems are in place to support these efforts. You should look for an IDD EHR with built-in workflows and modules that are tailored to the types of tasks that IDD service providers deliver. In this way, software for IDD care will make the user experience more intuitive, save staff time, and support adherence to best practices.
Most EHRs are built with broad behavioral health clinics in mind and often treat IDD service delivery as an afterthought. As a result, it may take IDD service providers considerable time and effort to configure the technology to support their day-to-day functions. When purchasing software designed for IDD settings, templates and workflows that meet your need should already be in place, and you should have the ability to customize these solutions to further ensure they reflect how you run your organization and deliver support to clients.
2. Your outdated EHR doesn’t include the latest AI-powered solutions.
Recording sessions, tracking IDD trends, and ensuring clinical notes are accurate and up to date can require significant time and further strain providers’ workloads. With manual or outdated systems, these tasks can quickly lead to inefficiencies that hinder providers’ ability to deliver excellent care and support more clients, while impeding an organization’s retention efforts.
It’s critical to select software for IDD care with integrated artificial intelligence (AI) tools that aid in notetaking, monitoring care progress, and streamlining workflows. An on-the-go, AI-powered ambient documentation solution, for example, efficiently records client sessions and immediately transforms them into case notes, saving providers the time they’d otherwise spend on keeping records. Anomaly detection AI tools review medical records, care plans, and session notes to identify any outliers that might impact a client’s care. These tools support an organization’s operational needs and enable providers to spend more and better-quality time with their clients.
3. Your outdated EHR is overwhelming and difficult to use.
High provider turnover is a pervasive issue in the IDD service setting, with around one in eight direct service professional (DSP) positions remaining vacant nationally and a 40% turnover rate across the country, according to the American Network of Community Options and Resources (ANCOR).
This widespread staffing challenge means that many organizations struggle to retain providers with high levels of tech literacy, experience a loss of institutional knowledge, and feel a pressing need to onboard new staff quickly.
When examining your options for available software for IDD organizations, choose an intuitive solution built around the most relevant user experience — one that provides the right information to the right person at the right time.
Role-based modular design supports bringing only the necessary dashboards and workflows closest to the user, making for faster learning and greater comfort with the solution. Uniformity in the user’s experience fosters easier training and peer-to-peer learning. If technology is complex or cumbersome, it only adds stress to an already overburdened staff. The organization may even find it a hindrance to staff retention and recruitment.
4. Your outdated EHR doesn’t support regulatory compliance for IDD providers.
Regulations in the disability service industry change over time, so it’s important that your IDD software can quickly adapt to accommodate new requirements. An IDD-specific platform will have your particular service setting and IDD compliance needs at the forefront. Robust EHRs offer a centralized source for tracking and meeting IDD compliance deadlines, helping everyone at your organization know exactly what needs to be completed and by when.
5. Your outdated EHR isn’t ready for industrywide documentation standardization.
The IDD services field continues to lack documentation standardization, which can help centralize efforts to provide better care and assist organizations in better understanding the inequities experienced by those with disabilities.
The best software for serving people with IDD will need to accommodate measurement- and outcomes-focused documentation and coding updates as standards change. To this end, IDD service providers should seek technology that supports structured, searchable documentation using configurable templates, which will make for the easiest updating over time.
6. Your outdated EHR doesn’t support different payment structures.
The IDD service industry uses a variety of payment structures, including fee-for-service models, cost-based service models, and, to a lesser degree, value-based systems in which risk or incentives are linked to the quality and cost-efficiency of service delivery.
It’s critical to find a solution with structured documentation capabilities that can support the payment structure your organization uses. Look for an EHR that automatically captures documentation around outcome measures and configures billing to payer-specific business rules for claims payment. These capabilities will give organizations the greatest flexibility in adapting to payment changes in the years to come.
Preparing for managed care or performance-based contracting will require built-in accountability drivers. For example, systems need to be in place to ensure accurate and complete service delivery. With Core’s Core Solutions’ Cx360 platform, an individual’s identified needs automatically flow through as valued outcomes to a person-centered life plan or service plan. Managers can assign staff to specific actions the organization needs to achieve associated quality outcomes. Meanwhile, automated task triggering ensures next-step task development and routing, minimizing the likelihood of service gaps occurring.
Preparing Your Organization for Tomorrow With the Right Software for IDD Agencies
Moving away from paper-based systems can help service providers gain efficiencies — but only to a certain extent. To get the most value from your EHR and deliver high-quality care to your clients with IDD, it’s essential to choose your technology approach carefully. As the future of funding becomes increasingly uncertain, you don’t want to be stuck with an outdated software package and saddled with the disruptive inefficiencies it offers.
By evaluating your current system and its impact on your staff’s daily work, you can identify the features you need in a modern, robust EHR. Reach out today for a demo of the Cx360 platform to learn more about the capabilities that can set your organization up for current and future success.
