Mental Health Facility Moves to eClinicalWorks EHR for Streamlined Care

Palmetto Counseling & Consulting, a northern South Carolina mental health facility, will begin an eClinicalWorks EHR implementation as part of an EHR platform switch to streamline clinical workflows and care coordination.

The systemwide implementation will replace the mental health facility’s previous EHR system, connecting healthcare providers through one system that integrates behavioral health solutions and medication management tools.

“As an outpatient behavioral care center, we need specific tools to manage treatment plans and medication,” Rich Schlauch, president and CEO of Palmetto Counseling & Consulting, said in a press release.

“With the eClinicalWorks EHR, we now have customizable, intuitive dashboards and workflows to meet our clinical, administrative, and billing needs. eClinicalWorks also automates processes like patient registrations, scheduling, intake, and patient communication. This will allow us to offer better and faster care, which is our top priority.”

The behavioral health system will leverage a fully integrated behavioral health module through eClinicalWorks. Palmetto Counseling & Consulting said the solution will provide clinicians with goal tracking, care plan reviews, patient and care team signoffs, and easy care management for individual and group visits.

Additionally, the mental health facility said the technology will support patients’ health and wellness, including lifestyle, activities of daily living, and home and community support by capturing patients’ behavioral health history.

“Mental and behavioral health is a growing concern across the country, and Palmetto Counseling offers many necessary services to help meet the needs of their community,” said Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks. “The eClinicalWorks behavioral health module will help improve practice efficiency and patient care, while aiding long-term growth. In addition, eClinicalWorks' multidimensional EHR significantly saves time for practices in their value-based care initiatives by collating and computing data from outside sources with real-time cloud intelligence.”

Healthcare experts have noticed that EHR functionality should support the multistep process of behavioral preventative care screenings and adapt as the clinician enters patient data for referral support.

But according to a viewpoint published in JAMA, standard EHR functionality falls short in supporting behavioral preventative healthcare.

“The challenge for digital health is to account for the several components of behavioral health interventions,” the authors wrote. “These preventive services are multistep processes that include screening for risks and then addressing identified needs through counseling or referral to services.”

“The EHR must mirror the multistep process and adapt as patient data are entered to provide counseling and referral support as at-risk individuals are identified, thereby ensuring the intervention is fully delivered,” they added.