ONC, SAMHSA Launch Initiative for Behavioral Health IT Interoperability

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) have partnered on an initiative that aims to advance behavioral health IT interoperability.

The agencies will invest more than $20 million of SAMHSA funds over the next three years to advance behavioral health IT data standards.

Health IT adoption across behavioral health providers lags other providers, partially due to their exclusion from health IT incentive programs, such as those under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

ONC analysis of American Hospital Association (AHA) survey data from 2019 and 2021 found that 86 percent of non-federal, general acute care hospitals had implemented a 2015 Edition certified EHR. On the other hand, 67 percent of psychiatric hospitals had adopted a 2015 Edition certified EHR.

Additionally, ONC analysis of 2020 SAMHSA survey data found that psychiatric hospitals lag even further behind in interoperability and patient engagement functionalities.

To address these challenges, the Behavioral Health Information Technology (BHIT) Initiative will identify and pilot a set of data elements for behavioral health with SAMHSA’s Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grant (SUPTRS BG) and Community Mental Health Services Block Grant (MHBG) grantees.

“The data elements will be coordinated via a new USCDI+ domain for behavioral health to improve the effectiveness and reduce the costs of data capture, use, and exchange for behavioral health providers,” according to a HealthITBuzz blog post written by Micky Tripathi, national coordinator for health IT, and Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, assistant secretary for mental health and substance use.

The USCDI+ project is set to support behavioral health data capture to enhance care coordination across behavioral health providers and other clinicians. Additionally, the initiative aims to streamline reporting for SAMHSA’s grantees by improving the ability of mental health and substance use treatment providers to measure and report on the care they provide.  

In 2024, ONC, SAMHSA, and other federal agencies will begin identifying data elements for the USCDI+ project as part of the broader BHIT Initiative.

“This collaborative approach will incorporate input on behavioral health priorities from a variety of individuals and entities, including clinicians, grantees, states, and advocates,” the blog post noted. “SAMHSA and ONC will coordinate with technology developers and participating providers on how to best include USCDI+ behavioral health data elements in health IT and pilot their use.”

As part of the BHIT Initiative, ONC will also develop a behavioral health information resource to support behavioral health care and integrated practice settings for HHS grantees and the public.  

The resource will provide implementation details to promote the adoption of the USCDI+ behavioral health data elements. For instance, it may include information on the use of health IT to address clinical priorities, technical information regarding integration across behavioral health settings, and support for streamlined workflows.

Additionally, ONC will provide technical assistance for pilot participants from the SUPTRS BG and MHGB programs to inform health IT adoption to improve capacity for substance use and mental health treatment.

“This may include, for example, deployment of educational resources on adoption of health IT capabilities and technical resources on BHIT data encoding and data quality,” Tripathi and Delphin-Rittmon noted.