Behavioral Health Functional Profile and FHIR IG (Jira PSS-2416)

This project is planned as a collaboration with key behavioral health stakeholders, including US federal and state agencies, along with behavioral health providers (CIOs, CMOs, EHR MD Champions, psychiatrists, Licensed Clinical Social Workers and case managers), EHR/HIT system developers, accreditation bodies, patient advocacy groups, patients and patient representatives, HL7 Work Groups and others to develop relevant use cases, consider innovative strategies and best practices to leverage HL7 Standards, both new and existing. Our objective is to promote seamless integration (cross-discipline), interoperability, and data-driven decision-making, while encompassing the needs of both behavioral health providers and patients, and including vital services to support children, adolescents and adults.

This project will establish an expert panel to evaluate the full range of information and functional requirements to support best practices in behavioral health. This will draw from work on the behavioral health dataset emerging in USCDI+, a joint development of the US Office of National Coordinator (ONC), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and others. The project will also take into account EHR/HIT system functional requirements as specified in the HL7 Behavioral Health Functional Profile (BHFP) – an earlier product the HL7 EHR Work Group – which will be updated to reflect current behavioral health practice needs. The Project is intended to support US Realm requirements.

Deliverables will include an updated HL7 Behavioral Health Functional Profile (BHFP) and an HL7 FHIR Behavioral Health FHIR Implementation Guide, titled US Behavioral Health Profiles, as a part of this project. This IG will focus on the USCDI+ BH data elements mapping to FHIR and user stories associated with these data elements. There will be a Connectathon track at the upcoming September HL7 FHIR Connectathon to test this IG.

We will seek to align with this project: Guidance for Mental Health Advance Directives/Psychiatric Advance Directives (PACIO ADI - FHIR Project). We also plan to review the mental health section and entries in C-CDA to inform the work.

Drummond Group is a key customer for the standards produced by this project. These standards will support their planned Behavioral Health Certification Program for EHR/HIT systems. Other likely customers include providers and EHR/HIT system developers – as they implement specialized functionality, information capture, management and flow to support behavioral health practice.

Key links:

HL7 Behavioral Health Confluence Page: https://confluence.hl7.org/display/EHR/Behavioral+Health

US Core Data for Interoperability Plus (USCDI+), Behavioral Health Domain: https://uscdiplus.healthit.gov/uscdi?id=uscdi_record&table=x_g_sshh_uscdi_domain&sys_id=8deaa2658778465098e5edb90cbb3597&view=sp

HL7 Behavioral Health Functional Profile - Release 1: http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=14