GCS's Al Guida Quoted by Politico on EHRs and Health IT in Behavioral Health Settings

On December 12, 2018, Politico Morning eHealth featured a quote from GCS’s Al Guida on the low level of EHRs within behavioral health provider settings.

“Noting that while CMMI — due to the SUPPORT Act (H.R. 6 (115) ) — will have future opportunities to help extend tech, Rucker argued that the government has an opportunity to improve things rather simply making sure admit, discharge, and transfer (or ADT) data is disseminated through health information exchanges that tell doctors when their patients have been hospitalized. That might help for patients admitted for a drug overdose.

"There may be low-hanging fruit and we are looking at how to expand that," Rucker said. His comments back up our earlier reporting about last week's White House interoperability meeting, during which CMS Administrator Seema Verma stated that the government is hoping to promote more fulsome release of ADT data.

It's "not enough," said Al Guida, a lobbyist for the Behavioral Health IT Coalition, noting increased usage of EHRs was a critical prerequisite for safe expansion of medication assisted treatment. Such treatment can be most safely used if prescribers check whether there are any patient allergies or interfering medications — both of which are best with an EHR.”