2022 advocacy expanded edition

9 Electronic Health Records Improve Service Delivery While it is critical to ensure rates and contracts that enable providers to build a qualified, stable workforce and expand programs to meet demand, other infrastructure is needed to efficiently and effectively serve New Jersey’s diverse population. Critical to providing whole person, comprehensive care while avoiding duplication of effort are interoperable electronic health records (EHRs). Advanced EHRs allow care teams access to information on clients’ status, medications, history and whether they have been hospitalized. In those cases, care teams can help to make transitions back to the community and ensure appropriate services are not only available, but also accessed, after discharge. In 2019, Congress made incentives, long available to medical healthcare providers, accessible to substance use disorder (SUD) treatment providers. In recent years, New Jersey has also made funding available to SUD treatment providers for implementing and upgrading EHR systems. Providers of mental health services have been overlooked at both levels. Appropriations are needed to ensure all New Jersey’s community providers are properly equipped with this most essential tool to provide the care coordination New Jerseyans deserve. Improving Access to Primary Health Care With so many barriers to care facing those in need, the ability to provide comprehensive services at one location, particularly for individuals with serious mental illness and SUD whom community behavioral health providers serve, requires capital investments for facilities to be able to bring primary medical care to their clients. Individuals with mental health and substance use disorders experience an inordinate number of serious comorbidities. Outcomes for these “high utilizers”, that small proportion of patients using the greatest amount of health care and the state’s fiscal resources, are positively impacted when primary health care can readily be coordinated and delivered by behavioral health providers serving this population. Providing capital funding to community-based behavioral health providers for facility renovation and/or expansion to meet integrated care goals will help improve outcomes for Isabella and thousands of others. Investment Is Needed in Infrastructure to Improve Access to Individualized, Comprehensive Care