Electronic Health Records In Mental Health Practice

Electronic health records (EHR) are not only the future of record keeping, clinician communication, and continuing care for clients, but they are also being actively pushed into use by complex, proactive government programs. This course will dispel myths about EHR – especially as it relates to mental health clinicians – and provide a deeper understanding of how the concept of EHR differs from simple electronic records, ethical and privacy concerns around EHR, and guidance on how to proceed with EHR in your own practice.

This is an introductory level course on the essential topics that mental health clinicians need to know about electronic health records. It features an hour-long interview between mental health technology experts Rob Reinhardt, LPCS M.Ed. NCC and Roy Huggins, LPC NCC (transcript available). It also includes a document summarizing the important points of the interview, which is followed by a series of articles that expand on the essential topics and also explain aspects of HIPAA compliance as it relates to EHR systems and other “cloud”-based services. Additional resources and references are provided for further study, but they are not part of the course.

Disclaimer: This course is purely educational and does not intend to serve as a license (or permission) to mental health professionals to prescribe or practice any of the approaches discussed in this course unless they fall within the scope of practice of your profession. Check with your licensing board about the scope of practice of your profession to make sure you practice within that scope.It also does not serve as a permission to title yourself in any specific way.