Struggles of Behavioral Health Technologies

Struggles of Behavioral Health Technologies

This blog, authored by Maggie Labarta, PHD, a member of ContinuumCloud, follows a survey conducted among behavioral health leaders in May 2024. The survey led to the creation of a series of reports, including the 2024 Executive Perspectives in Behavioral Health, 2024 Clinical Perspectives in Behavioral Health and 2024 HR Perspectives in Behavioral Health to explore these reports in more detail, please click the links provided.

Behavorial Health Can Leverage Integrated Software Solutions to Improve Outcomes for Consumers and Businesses:

By streamlining workflows, improving patient engagement, and simplifying reporting, these technologies can reduce inefficiencies. They also increase employee satisfaction and lead to better outcomes for clients. This helps organizations achieve sustainable results and ensure financial stability. However, staffing issues, difficulties in measuring and reporting outcomes, and complex operations that make it difficult to see the big picture of the organization are all challenges that stand in the way of behavioral health leaders improving their financial health. In our supplemental reports, we took a detailed look at staffing perspectives related to the workforce crisis, as well as clinical perspectives related to service delivery and outcomes.

Industry Insights on Operations, Technology, and Financial Sustainability:

In August, ContinuumCloud published its series of reports about Behavioral Health. In May 2024, ContinuumCloud surveyed more than 200 behavioralhealth leaders on recruitment and retention, employee engagement, service delivery, patient engagement, operational processes, and the digital tools that support these initiatives. The results highlight our priorities and challenges. One of the biggest challenges is providing information about how the organization is performing and the impact it is having on the industry.

Overview of the Survey:

Leaders rated their organizations in several areas. These included patient engagement, financial sustainability, and patient outcomes.

They also looked at recruitment processes, transparency, and reporting capabilities. Integrated software solutions and employee engagement were also part of the assessment. The five-point response scale (from “great" to “terrible”) also included an “I don’t know” option.

Bright Spots:

The survey results show that more than half of respondents believe their organization is performing well. This applies to key areas such as customer loyalty, financial health, patient outcomes, and recruitment processes.A third of respondents rated their organization's performance as "neutral", "poor" or "terrible". Some respondents also said they did not know. The statement "neutral" is difficult to interpret in surveys with a Likert scale.

Is it negative or positive? The person evaluating the data often assigns a value to it. In this type of survey, I often see it as negative.

I think, “I don’t have enough information to judge that.” I could also think, “It’s not bad, but I’m not happy with it.” Or I could think, “It’s not important to me.” The "neutral" response colloquially feels like “meh".

In either case, "neutral" is by no means an unqualified approval. It suggests that a better understanding of the processes that influence performance is needed.

Challenges with Transparency, Reporting and Integrated Software Solutions:

Survey data on visibility, reporting, clinical workflows, software utilisation and employee engagement show lower ratings. These areas are important and impact the above metrics.

Most respondents, around 60%, rated these efforts positively. However, 40-42% felt these efforts were neutral to poor. Compared to the previous performance areas, fewer people stated that they “don't know”.

About 30% rated their transparency and reporting functions as neutral. 26% rated their clinical workflows as neutral. In addition, 23% were neutral about integrated software solutions.

The Impact of Inadequate Workflows and Integrated Software Solutions:

Workflows are critical to efficiency and effectiveness, poor workflows impact staff retention and patient engagement. Integrated software solutions make workflows more efficient for patients and staff and help to alleviate common complaints on both sides.

Patients feel the effects of poorly designed workflows. These workflows often focus on the needs of the doctor rather than the patient. Staff express frustration that they spend their time doing office work instead of caring for patients70% of managers surveyed feel good about their efforts to care for patients. However, only 58% of respondents feel that their staff engagement efforts are as good.

Although integrated software solutions are important, only 58% of respondents rated them as “good” or “terrific.” Meanwhile, 18% rated them as “bad” or “terrible” This is the highest negative rating for any topic.

Importance of Visibility and Data Integration:

While reading the report, I kept thinking about visibility and integrated software solutions. You cannot fix what you cannot see, and without data, we cannot see anything at all.

One advantage of integrated software solutions is that they provide transparency. They also allow users to gather information in real time, which makes them much more useful. EHR and HRIS systems create defined workflows that users can measure easily.

Warehousing integrates data from HR, clinical and financial software to give a much more complete picture of performance. They provide a mechanism for understanding performance at the employee and organizational level.

As demand for services and accountability increase, they are key to financial sustainability. This includes value-based contracts and quality metrics. As a result, managing operations and compliance is becoming increasingly complex. A limited workforce means that efficiency and satisfaction of existing staff will be critical.

Key obstacles to overcoming challenges:

There is a lot to do here. The survey found that 51% of respondents felt constrained by inefficient or outdated workflows. In addition, 33% stated that reporting and analysis systems were too weak. Finally, 40% were dissatisfied with the recruitment and induction processes.

The obstacles to overcoming these challenges are well known in the industry. Here is a simplified version of the sentence, broken down into shorter sentences:

 - Challenges include budget constraints, which affect 50% of cases.

 - Lack of time and resources are a problem for 48%

 - Concerns about training and taking on tasks affect 37%

 - Not enough qualified staff to manage the instruments is a problem for 31%

 - Concerns about acceptance by employees are present in 30% of cases.

The Role of Technology:

Budget constraints are a constant issue in the behavioral health field. It is always difficult to decide where to invest limited resources. Investing in technology is not easy. They require a significant commitment of financial and human resources, especially at the executive level, but are essential to promoting excellence and sustainability

Investing in integrated software solutions can improve performance, support recruitment and document impact. This will lead to financial sustainability. It will also help to create organizations where both staff and patients can thrive.

Conclusion:

This report provides an overview of the challenges that behavioral health organizations face in adopting and effectively using technology. It also discusses how integrated software solutions can improve performance. Many problems need to be solved.

The road to adoption and integration is challenging. However, it is important that we focus on this step. In this way, we can build a sustainable organization. This organization will care for patients and support the well-being of our employees.