Criteria for Electronic Health Records Designed for Behavioral Health Services Open for Public Comment
The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) Behavioral Health Work Group will make available for public comment the initial draft of criteria for electronic health records (EHRs) designed for behavioral health services at http://www.cchit.org/participate/public-comment. The four-week online comment period begins Nov. 16, 2009, and will close on Dec. 11, 2009.
This initial draft of the criteria is the culmination of 16 months of work for volunteers in CCHIT's Behavioral Health Work Group who have contributed more than 1,000 hours of their time. Separate sets of criteria were proposed for two different approaches to EHRs:
- Criteria specific to the needs of behavioral health as an add-on to EHRs for the physician-office, or ambulatory, practice setting.
- A comprehensive stand-alone certification designed uniquely for behavioral health settings and services.
When CCHIT requested public input for additional work groups, a request for behavioral health criteria received one of the largest votes. Now it is time for the behavioral health community to vote again.
The 2009 co-chairs, Steven R. Daviss, MD, DFAPA (Chair, Dept of Psychiatry, Baltimore Washington Medical Center), and Sharon Hicks, MSW, MBA (President and CEO, Askesis Development Group), urge all stakeholders to come to the CCHIT site and comment on each and every criterion proposed.
Behavioral health faces some unique challenges, which the behavioral health work group has striven to identify and address. The public comment period is a great opportunity to have all voices heard: providers, vendors, consumers, advocates, and other stakeholders.
As Dr. Daviss said, "A broad constituency commenting on the proposed criteria will ensure that this first work product of the behavioral health work group will help the behavioral health service delivery system adopt health information technology, use it meaningfully to improve people's lives, and better integrate behavioral health into the larger physical health system."
Ms. Hicks reminded commenters to, "Review each criterion in the context of the clinical work or IT needs of your organization or stakeholder group; consider the different needs among the public sector service delivery system and the commercially insured system; and base your comments on your vision of BH service delivery for the near future."
One of CCHIT's most successful ideas has proven to be its publication of a forward-looking roadmap of certification requirements, Ms. Hicks added. By clearly expressing what additional criteria to expect in the future, the roadmap is an effective mechanism for driving enhanced capabilities and standards compliance into the marketplace. When reviewing criteria, remember that the roadmap designation is your way to indicate that you think that something is important, even if not yet technically feasible."
The behavioral health work group includes a broad range of stakeholders and we have discussed each and every one of these criteria," Dr. Daviss noted. "We don't always have 100 percent agreement, but now it is the time for the proponents of behavioral health specific functionality to weigh in with their comments and opinions. Only by casting a wide net for input will the final product be the accurate representation for which we are all working so hard."