How the marriage of primary care and behavioral health is driving the EHR industry
As more primary care providers integrate behavioral health services into their practice, EHR platforms must evolve to meet the needs of healthcare providers and their patients. The U.S. is suffering from a mental healthcare crisis. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in five adults in the U.S. experience a mental health disorder each year, but less than half (47.2%) received treatment in 2021. These data points become even more devastating when you consider that suicide is the second leading cause of death among children age 10- to 14-years-old, with one in six kids age 6- to 17-years-old suffering from a mental health disorder every year. The silver lining here, if there is one, is that deep-rooted stigmas attached to behavioral healthcare are finally losing their crushing grip on our patient populations as more people openly discuss mental health issues. Another step in the right direction: two years after the pandemic resulted in alarming waves of s