EHR Selected To Help Facilitate Treatment And Recovery
By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer
Implementation expected to help bring about transformative changes in patient outcomes and care delivery
The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has selected Document Storage Systems, Inc. (DSS), to implement ARRA-certified vxVistA EHR across its continuum of care. The implementation is expected to assist the OMH in its comprehensive plan to bring about transformative changes to achieve recovery for those living with mental illness in the Empire State.
One of the nation’s largest providers of mental health services, New York’s OMH serves more than 700,000 people per year. Operating 24 psychiatric centers, the system also regulates, certifies, and oversees more than 4,500 programs run by nonprofit agencies or local governments, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency, community support, and residential/family care programs. According to the OMH, one in ten Americans experience a mental illness serious enough to impact their life at home, school, or work; it is a major cause of disability, school failure, poor overall health, incarceration, homelessness, and death due to suicide. Thus, the mission of the OMH is to facilitate early identification and treatment of serious emotional disturbances, to foster recovery and resilience for those afflicted, and to promote diversity and transformation by publicly promoting mental health to reduce fear and stigma.
With DSS providing implementation, training, and support, vxVistA will first be used in all of the OMH hospital locations with plans to modify the EHR into an “Empire State VistA” version, to be utilized across all OMH facilities. To optimize care, the DSS Mental Health Suite (vxMHS) will be leveraged to allow practitioners a standardized setting for important details within each patient record, as detailed, descriptive notes are critical to treatment in mental health care. Other modules that will provide enterprise-wide accessibility to patients’ records include: vxComputerized Patient Record System, vxBar Code Medication Administration, vxGroup Notes, vxDocument Manager, vxClinical Note Templates, and vxRelease of Information.
“We look forward to the OMH’s success as they leverage our VistA-based EHR expertise to achieve their goals,” said Mark Byers, CEO and president of DSS. “This partnership signifies an important move by the OMH, as mental health care organizations push to better utilize EHRs in order to achieve targeted patient outcomes and care delivery.”
SOURCE: Business Wire