Close The Behavioral Health EMR Gap

The integration of behavioral health within the wider healthcare system necessitates cohesive integration of underlying systems and data. However, these critical connections have been lacking, primarily due to the exclusion of behavioral health from the 2009 HITECH Act, which facilitated the rapid adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) in the medical-surgical field. The escalating significance of behavioral health as a paramount public health concern, compounded by the pandemic, is evident in the threefold increase in depression symptoms among US adults and an annual tally of 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021. Notably, the disease burden disproportionately affects young individuals, with suicide now ranking as the second leading cause of death among 10- to 14-year-olds, while a distressing 25 percent of teenage girls have reported developing suicide plans in the past year.