Virtual care enables BrightView Health to increase outpatient access

Virtual care enables BrightView Health to increase outpatient access

BrightView Health, a behavioral health facility that specializes in addiction treatment and substance abuse, already was using telehealth when the COVID-19 pandemic and associated response happened. The organization mostly was using telehealth between its various locations.THE PROBLEM
However, BrightView did not have a secure communications platform to engage with patients either synchronously or asynchronously.
“So, the pandemic and the lockdowns created some potential gaps in access to care that we needed to predict and fill,” said Navdeep S. Kang, chief clinical officer at BrightView Health and a fellow with the Obama Foundation. “We looked at several platforms to implement secure communications.
“We were specifically interested…

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Missouri drug monitoring program taps Bamboo Health for operations

Missouri drug monitoring program taps Bamboo Health for operations

Every state but Missouri has operated a statewide prescription drug monitoring program for years. Now, the Show-Me state has come around to see the value of more advanced tracking controlled substances among registered providers.WHY IT MATTERS
Bamboo Health, which develops technologies for behavioral health and substance use disorders, says it will transition the existing Saint Louis County PDMP, which covers about 85% of the state, to a new statewide PDMP – without a complicated data migration process.
The state of Missouri will pay $1.4 million to operate Missouri’s new statewide PDMP, which will absorb the county’s data, according to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 
St….

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Geisinger solves behavioral health access problem with telemedicine

Geisinger solves behavioral health access problem with telemedicine

Benjamin C. Gonzales, operations manager II, virtual care, at Geisinger, said the prominent health system has faced a problem that is the biggest problem in behavioral healthcare: access. And while Geisinger’s population certainly has experienced its own challenges with behavioral health access like other communities, the problem has been significantly compounded by three things.THE PROBLEM
“First and most obvious, the pandemic,” Gonzales stated. “Unsurprisingly, we experienced a surge in demand much like other specialties in our system. Before the pandemic, it was common for our department to have a couple hundred outstanding referrals.
“We quickly saw that increase to a maximum of 19,000…

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Hyndman Area Health Center cuts IT bill in half with the cloud

Hyndman Area Health Center cuts IT bill in half with the cloud

Hyndman Area Health Center – a holistic Pennsylvania-based health center providing family medicine, dental health, behavioral health and more – transitioned from client-hosted servers to eClinicalWorks cloud-based servers to expand its network capacity and meet a rising data demand.Since then, it has experienced a more than 150% increase in patients and has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past few years since it no longer relies on physical servers.
Healthcare IT News sat down with Bill Kurtycz, CEO of Hyndman Area Health Center, to discuss cloud technology, cloud EHRs and telehealth, and how the technologies have benefitted the provider organization.
Q….

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