In this session, staff presented a draft chapter and recommendations on improving clinical integration of services for beneficiaries with behavioral health needs. Over the course of the 2021–2022 meeting cycle, the Commission discussed the importance of behavioral health IT for care quality and patient safety.
This presentation provided an overview of the draft chapter, namely the value that health IT has in promoting clinical integration of services. It summarizes the barriers that behavioral health providers face in adopting electronic health records (EHRs). The chapter then outlines where federal Medicaid guidance could explicitly encourage health IT adoption, and the role the federal government could play in improving the state of behavioral health IT.