The behavioral healthcare industry is full of bright, passionate professionals. However, behavioral healthcare workers face unique challenges and stresses, resulting in notoriously high rates of employee turnover and burnout.
For any behavioral healthcare manager, engaging and retaining great workers is a core objective and a major challenge.
There are no quick fixes when it comes to maintaining a happy workforce. However, leveraging technology to improve efficiency is one of the most meaningful improvements that a healthcare organization can make.
In the sections below, we’ll discuss the use of electronic records solutions as a means of enhancing employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention.
Employee Retention Challenges in Behavioral Health Settings
Behavioral healthcare workers are often asked to work with individuals who have intense needs, due to issues like mental illness, substance abuse, and poverty. This can place a tremendous emotional strain on workers. Meanwhile, understaffing and limited resources often lead to administrative overload and data management issues.
According to a survey by Behavioral Healthcare Executive, around 60% of behavioral healthcare workers feel that their clinical departments suffer from understaffing. While understaffing is sometimes a budget issue, it’s often the result of high turnover from unsatisfied or burned-out employees.
To break the cycle of understaffing and burnout, it’s essential to equip excellent workers with the tools they need to thrive in their roles.
Streamlining Operations with Electronic Records Solutions
Electronic records solutions like Integrative’s Coordinated Care Platform (CCP) provide a user-friendly, centralized records platform for behavioral health workers.
Designed specifically for behavioral health organizations, CCP is where workers go to:
- Access and update data
- Plan patient care
- Manage patient records
Easy-to-use electronic records solutions simplify administrative tasks and streamline operations, leading to reduced employee stress and enhanced efficiency.
The Role of Coordinated Care Platforms in Employee Engagement
A coordinated care platform is a comprehensive data management solution. That means more automation of time-consuming tasks, simpler data entry procedures, and easier data transfer between team members.
They help behavioral health workers achieve their primary objective: to provide great care and support for the populations they serve. In turn, employees become less stressed and more satisfied with their roles.
Addressing Common Pitfalls in Behavioral Health with Technology
For behavioral health teams, administrative pain points include:
- Inefficient processes for billing, referral management, and document tracking
- Losing too much time on administrative tasks, such as data entry
- Care planning challenges due to missing, incomplete, or disorganized data
A coordinated care platform relieves stress and saves time in each of these areas by providing a streamlined, comprehensive data management solution.
Unifying tasks like care planning, records management, and referral management under a single umbrella works wonders for efficiency. These improvements also make it easier for employees to take pride in their work, leading to a happier, more stable work environment.
Catering to Different Behavioral Health Environments
Behavioral health encompasses settings like psychiatric rehabs, foster care organizations, social work offices, and many more types of public and private providers.
While the behavioral health field is incredibly diverse, there are shared priorities and points of emphasis, such as family coordination and crisis management. Thus, it’s helpful for behavioral health teams to use electronic records solutions that were designed with their unique needs in mind.
For example, Integrative’s CCP features for foster care and adoption organizations include tools for monitoring and reporting to support regulatory compliance.
By equipping employees with these tools for success, technology upgrades help behavioral health leaders build proactive, empowered teams.
Enhancing Quality of Care and Reducing Staff Burnout
Operational inefficiency is a major driver of staff burnout in healthcare. When employees can’t locate the information they need, or constantly find themselves losing precious minutes on slow data entry tasks, they get stressed out.
Passionate individuals enter the behavioral health field to make a profound difference—then, too often, they end up feeling hampered by systemic inefficiencies.
Technologies that help workers cut through the clutter make an enormous difference for all parties—patients, employees, and the organization as a whole. Equipping employees with the right tools has a direct impact on reducing burnout, improving satisfaction and dedication, and boosting employee retention.
Empower Behavioral Health Employees with Integrative
Electronic records solutions don’t just improve efficiency and streamline operations. They also help healthcare leaders empower their workers, resulting in improved employee engagement and retention.
To discuss software solutions for your behavioral health organization, contact Integrative today.
