A Work in Progress: Electronic Health Record Utilization in Residential Treatment

The use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) has increased dramatically in the past few years, in part as a result of the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), and has significant potential benefit for youth residential treatment providers. Although use is widespread in the medical profession, youth residential treatment providers have only recently begun to use EHRs, and there is little information available to guide them in selection. Members of the Association of Children’s Residential Centers (ACRC) were invited via the association newsletter, and targeted email and phone call reminders, to participate in a 13-item on-line survey focused on use, satisfaction and concerns with EHRs. Eighty-seven percent of ACRC member organizations responded to the survey. Two thirds (66%) of the organizations reported using a wide variety of EHRs, and cited a range of strengths and challenges of the various systems; no single EHR product dominated the residential agency market. The authors discuss the need for further comparative EHR information and stress the importance of EHRs for data exchange and outcomes evaluation.