The office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released a new report presenting an overview of the role that information technology plays in states' mental health services, a role that SAMHSA describes as "crucial." The report describes the differences in the size, types, and uses of IT resources in the nation's state mental health agencies.

Public mental health services provided by the state mental health agencies are increasingly relying upon their IT systems to provide essential functions including: monitoring the public mental health system for service gaps; ensuring that persons living with mental illness receive timely, appropriate and needed services; reimbursing mental health providers for services provided; and building accountability performance targets and outcome measures.

According to its press release, SAMHSA has developed the report as a means of "providing greater insight into the nature, capabilities and challenges of state mental health agencies' IT systems and the steps that can be taken to help enhance them."

The report describes government initiatives impacting the states' mental health IT systems (including federal and state accountability systems); what kind of client information is contained in the IT system ( such as clinician-client treatment interaction); and which states have implemented electronic health records, which are planning to do so, and the benefits of using electronic health records. There is also mention of what information is lacking-some states only report on client-level data from the state mental health agencies and Medicaid, not private-paying clients.

The full report is available on the Web at http://download.ncadi.samhsa.gov/ken/pdf/URS_Data07/CMHS_State_MH_DataSystems.pdf .

Based on a press release by SAMHSA.

Link: http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0903192245.aspx

More Industry Headlines