Have you ever wondered how many human services work together? How they are able to help an individual and use all the resources available? The answer is Interoperability, which means the way the systems or organizations work together. They interoperate, work with one another.
Mental health provider is a professional who is certified to be able to provide some type of mental health services to an individual. Thus person can be counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, or social worker. For, example a student who sees their school counselor on occasions to discuss general problems, but then the counselor starts to notice these emotional problems that are leading to a more disruptive behavior and emotional problems, the counselor might make the proper referral for a student to see a Psychologist. Generally, they feel out a form and fax it over to the proper identity. Then the students can begin therapy with a professional who ca help them directly with these emotional problems, such as cutting, depression and even substance abuse, stress, Autism, ADHD, ADD or a different emotional/mental problem. It’s becoming more common to see this type of behavior in students and teens. Many times the problems they have at home affect to some point where they need to be referred immediately to a specialized person for help. In the Imperial Valley the school districts work real close with Imperial County Behavioral Health they have Psychologist who can administer medication and trained nurses, and case managers that work closely with the patient and their family in order to provide the services that they will benefit the child. The different people that work together to help the patient have an easy access to all these documents since they operate a database and many times the information is logged in to the computer. The also put together files that are passed around to the different people involved with a particular patient to have all the information required. In general all school districts in the Imperial Valley generally have a resources center which many times students and families are directed, with just a phone call or proper documentation they can receive services like county medical, food stamps/SNAP or Cash Aid/Welfare. They have the proper database system to operate from other locations; just with the setup of a computer and the database program installed they can access to all the records and make the necessary adjustments to provide the same services they would at the centralized social services office. Also, they can provide a family with many links to local resources and services they might need. This is a perfect example of interoperability; the school district, mental health and social services working together.
In Arizona, Bayless Behavioral Health Solutions has become one of the first mental health care facilitator to launch a health information exchange to share patient records with care partners.(INFORMATION WEEK) There is an ongoing debate if this type of program will interfere the relationship the provider has with the patient or if by any reason this can compromise the patients confidentiality. Even though there are those concerns Bayless behavioral Health Solution has launched their web portal to share information with its care partners. "We think it might be the first HIE for behavioral health," says Justin Bayless, president of Bayless Behavioral Health Solutions , which provides counseling, addiction rehab, forensic psychology, and early-childhood development services in two outpatient clinics in Phoenix, as well as at local assisted living facilities, nursing homes, schools, and community centers.” .(INFORMATION WEEK) This is another perfect example of interoperability.. It’s a way to facilitate the exchange of data in a secure way between the mental health provider and its partners. “ Bayless BHS says the portal is available to anyone involved in mental health services, including healthcare providers, insurance companies, case managers, educators, probation officers, and skilled nursing facilities.”(Information WEEK) I believe this will be so beneficial because it will be less scramble of papers. When you need to retrieve information you can just log on and click on the information and it will be there. “For the next 10-15 years, the focus will be on exchanging data to deliver information pertinent to a specific patient rather than in building a comprehensive electronic health records (HER), Bayless said. “That’s so far away. There are so many providers out there that are still using paper."(INFORMATION WEEK) I believe that the interoperate ability system, is one of the best implementation created in the mental health area. I think there is lots of documents that need to be saved and filed that it makes it difficult to keep up with all the paper work and reality is that with the demand of a mental health provider needs is raising and that the files and caseloads become larger and it happens that the paper or documents get misplaced, misfiled and even lost. This will put an end to this and not only will the scrambling of paper work end when on the telephone with one of the partners that they are working in conjunction with they will have access to the information themselves without having to call and request files and information. The best is the information will be their immediately.
I believe that there are many benefits to this and personally I’m totally for these technology improvements. But, I do see a negative to it all, the fact that sometimes the systems are down and would make the information unavailable at that moment. I know there is a backup software and that the information will always be saved but to me that seems like the only down fall to the with this technology portal. The possibility to having some of the most important documents in pare and in a file is also a great precaution to this matter and would help the organization at the time of technology fail. Also, considering a power outage and not being able to log on to the computer to access the information can be a downfall but having the files on hand will also be a solution to this. In general interoperability I think is amazing that different organizations work together in the benefits of a client. Knowing that we can make a difference in the life of a person is what we have in mind and whatever it takes to be able to do it, should be done. I think that working alongside is excellent, I can’t wait to be able to be part of this group that will help individuals.