Whole-person care is getting more popular, but what does it mean to implement whole-person care in your therapy practice? A key piece of the whole-person care puzzle is implementing workflows and processes aligning with this care model. Your EHR is no exception. So, let’s look at 7 tools your EHR needs to implement whole-person care models.

What is Whole-Person Care?

Whole-person care involves looking at the entire individual, considering multiple factors that contribute to their health or disease. It emphasizes a holistic approach that takes into account not only the physical health of a person, but also their mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. This approach focuses on treating the whole person, rather than just specific organs or mental health symptoms.

The goal of whole-person care is to empower individuals, families, communities, and populations to improve their health by addressing interconnected factors and promoting overall well-being. It emphasizes collaboration and coordination among different healthcare providers and institutions, bringing together conventional and complementary approaches to best care for the individual’s needs.

Comprehensive Health Data Capture

Your EHR should enable the capture and storage of a wide range of data, including medical history, physical health records, mental health assessments, social determinants of health, and other relevant information. This comprehensive data capture allows for a holistic understanding of the individual’s health and facilitates coordinated care. Capturing this data can help you understand your client’s health as a whole and create treatment plans that consider every aspect of them.

Forget about searching for an EHR that claims to have all the data you need (which may become outdated anyway). Our solution: opt for an EHR with customizable documentation (like TheraNest). With the ability to create tailor-made forms, you can effortlessly gather the exact data you require without any pointless information muddying up your client data.

Interoperability and Data Exchange

Your EHR should support interoperability and seamless data exchange between different healthcare providers and systems. This enables the sharing of client information across different settings and disciplines, facilitating collaborative and coordinated care. Mental and physical health affect each other, so it’s important to collaborate with other professionals and monitor these changes closely. For example, a client’s chronic pain could affect the severity of their depression.

Integrate Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

Your EHR should integrate and capture social determinants of health data, such as socio-economic status, education, housing, and food security. This information provides insights into the social and environmental factors influencing an individual’s health and helps providers tailor care to address these determinants.

Care Coordination and Communication

EHR systems should support care coordination functionalities, allowing providers from different disciplines to collaborate and communicate effectively. This includes secure messaging, referral management, and care plan coordination. Don’t forget about faxing capabilities, as some healthcare providers still rely on faxes for effective communication.

Decision Support Tools

Your EHR must provide decision-support tools that assist clinicians in evidence-based care and facilitate whole-person treatment. These tools may include clinical decision support systems, alert systems for potential adverse events, and preventive care or screening reminders. Consider using an EHR with integrated e-prescribe tools to make all verifications within the same platform.

Client Engagement Features

An EHR should support client engagement by providing client portals, enabling individuals to access their health records, communicate with healthcare providers, and actively participate in their care. We also recommend intake forms that can be filled through the portal and allow clients to make payments through their portal.

Some practices offer additional functions like secure messaging or self-scheduling via the portal. They’re not right for everyone, but it’s something to consider when setting up your client portal.

Population Health Management

The right EHR offers population health management functionalities, allowing providers to analyze aggregated health data, identify trends, and develop interventions to improve specific populations’ health. These reports should be easily accessible within your EHR.

A comprehensive mental health approach can positively impact client outcomes and help prevent conditions. However, implementing this approach effectively requires some effort on your part. It is important to ensure that your therapeutic approaches, operational workflows, and technology are all in sync. If you want to learn more about whole-person care, check out this eBook.

TheraNest is an EHR platform made by therapists, for therapists. Our software is here to back up your clinical decisions and outcome-based treatment, giving you the power of whole-person care. Don’t just take our word for it. Start your free 21-day trial now, no credit card needed.