Behavioral Health Management articles from January 2004

Behavioral Health Management archives from January 2004

2004 begins with a changing financing landscape.(Editorial)
January 1, 2004... As you implement your 2004 business plans, keep in mind these words of wisdom: "If you sleep next to an elephant, you can't help but notice when he rolls over." In behavioral health, our "elephant" is public-sector funding, and last year our...

Forcibly medicating death row inmates with mental illness--an ethical dilemma.(Guest Editorial)
January 1, 2004... This is not a good time to be on death row. It's even worse time to be mentally ill and on death row. For mentally ill death row inmates, who make up perhaps as much as 25% of the death row population, the future is no longer in doubt. The U.S....

The aftermath of the New Freedom Commission.(Washington Insights)
January 1, 2004... It's easy to be cynical about the outcome of President George W. Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. The commission's two-year life has been eclipsed by terrorist attacks, military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a...

Reflecting on CMHC battles won and not won (yet).(In Retrospect)
January 1, 2004... The announcement of my stepping down as president/CEO of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare (NCCBH) and from its individual membership section, the Association of Behavioral Healthcare Management (ABHM), prompted...

Unwiring with Wi-Fi and cellular technologies: new data-access options enhance the benefits of electronic medical records.
January 1, 2004... With the arrival of HIPAA, behavioral health records are increasingly computer-based. Although ensuring secure access to patient records is a concern, the advantages of storing information in digital form rather than as handwritten records are...

Taking a group approach to a new it system: Washington State mental health entities adapt to changing technology by working together.
January 1, 2004... In 2002, a vendor decided to discontinue support for the software used by many Washington State mental health entities, Instead of the chaos one might expect, this event is proving to be a watershed moment for these organizations, as they...

Overcoming resistance to new technology: employee buy-in is crucial for successful information system implementation.(Cover Story)
January 1, 2004... Develop and implement integrated electronic health record and personal health information systems": This might be the most daunting of the recommendations in the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health's final report. Of course,...

Protecting your computers from invaders: antivirus-software powerhouse Symantec offers tips for keeping viruses, worms, and Trojan horses at bay.
January 1, 2004... Most people who use a computer and the Internet for business and/or personal activities are familiar with the potential havoc that can be wrought by computer viruses. These little programs often make news headlines and are capable of everything...

The latest in financial management software: what to look for in new enterprise revenue-management systems.
January 1, 2004... Maximizing reimbursement is important to the successful functioning of any behavioral healthcare provider. Patient-accounting legacy systems are no longer meeting today's providers' needs (a legacy system is an outdated computer system that...

Developments in depression treatment.(Pharmacologic Trends In Behavioral Health)
January 1, 2004... No doubt about it--the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have dramatically transformed treatment of depression and related disorders. But just as the SSRIs are marching ahead of older tricyclics in acceptance, a new class of...

Collaboration, technology, and outcomes--a recipe to improve service delivery: Western Pennsylvania organizations use a custom outcomes solution to serve children and families more effectively.
January 1, 2004... In 1997, more than 20 Western Pennsylvania mental health stakeholders formed the Outcomes Collaborative (OC) to realize the benefits of using electronic data to promote accountability, along with measuring and improving the effectiveness of...

Know your business model before choosing an IT system: is your organization a payer or provider? The answer has important system design implications.
January 1, 2004... The behavioral health field is in transition from largely grant-funded provider networks to more conventional payer/provider delivery system business models. Furthermore, behavioral health systems are in transition from being primarily public...

Delivering on the managed care promise: a new model for affordable, quality care: An MBHO focuses on complex cases--while entrusting providers and patients with the low-risk ones--to deliver true value.
January 1, 2004... We may have forgotten that mental health treatments ere once excluded entirely from employee benefit plans. When employers first moved to add mental healthcare coverage in the mid- 1980s, they feared treatment costs would spiral out of control....

Behavioral health's key role in managing autism.
January 1, 2004... Autism slams the door on children's development just as they begin to engage the world. The disorder has baffled researchers, and our current understanding amounts to a keyhole's view, at best. But that door won't stay locked much Longer if...

The M.I.N.D. Institute.(Facility Design Showcase)
January 1, 2004... A focal point of today's research on autism is the M.I.N.D. Institute (Medical Investigation of Neuro-developmental Disorders), on a 10-acre campus-within a campus at the University of California--Davis. Three buildings of a planned tire...

Don't dismiss executives' role in EMR implementation.(Views On Technology)
January 1, 2004... Executive management's role is to oversee an organization's operations. This extensive role encompasses many aspects and is increasingly difficult in the healthcare arena. Complying with federal and state laws, along with conducting basic...

Biometric patient identification.(Product Spotlight)
January 1, 2004... UNI/CARE Systems, Inc.'s Pro-Filer[TM] is incorporating Ultra-Scan Corp.'s Livescan Ultrasonic Identification System (LUIS[TM]) to ensure privacy and accuracy in the delivery of behavioral healthcare services. This biometric technology allows...

Book on technology and behavioral health.(Product Spotlight)
January 1, 2004... Behavioral Healthcare Informatics (published by Springer) is a resource on what is possible today and what lies ahead as technology and behavioral healthcare converge. Covering a range of areas from technology infrastructures to organizational...

Workflow management support.(Product Spotlight)
January 1, 2004... Esteam has developed a dual-faceted approach for its new TOTAL: Impact[TM] service, comprised of TOTAL: Record and TOTAL: Redesign. TOTAL: Redesign offers a system of workflow analyses, followed by process redesign recommendations. This...

Resource on eating disorders and obesity.(Product Spotlight)
January 1, 2004... The Handbook of Eating Disorders and Obesity (published by John Wiley & Sons) presents the latest information in multiple areas of research and practice, highlighting risk factors, assessment, treatment, and prevention of eating disorders and...

CARF freezes application and survey fees.(Product Spotlight)
January 1, 2004... Despite rising costs associated with conducting site visits and providing accreditation services, the application and survey lees that CARF charges to providers for accreditation services will remain at their current levels through this year....

We can't go to mars--or improve behavioral healthcare--without more funding.(As I See It)
January 1, 2004... With healthcare costs already skyrocketing and many Americans uninsured, now is not the time to return to the moon of prepare for even longer voyages, as President Bush recently proposed. In his defense, Bush did not call for a large investment...

Time to get the story out.(Views From The Trenches)
January 1, 2004... It's not the ups and downs in life... it's the jerks," someone once remarked. Well, the people in our profession have their ups and downs, but there are very few if any jerks--proven once again at November's Employee Assistance Professionals...