U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Indian Health Service: The Federal Health Program for American Indians and Alaska Natives
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RPMS
 Integrated Behavioral Health

Welcome to the RPMS Integrated Behavioral Health System home page.

This site will serve as a central repository for the most current information on the existing RPMS behavioral health applications and future application development. The term "Integrated Behavioral Health" (IBH) refers to both the coordination of primary care and behavioral health care as well as the integration of health information to enhance patient safety and improve outcomes.

The Indian Health Service has long been a pioneer in using health information technology to capture clinical and public health data. The IHS health information system is called the Resource and Patient Management System (RPMS). The primary clinical component of RPMS, Patient Care Component (PCC), was launched in 1984. In the early 1990s the Mental Health/Social Services (MH/SS) software application was developed. A new behavioral health application, Behavioral Health System (BHS), was released in 2003 and an enhanced graphical user interface version, BH GUI in Patient Chart, was deployed in 2004.

RPMS Electronic Health Record and Behavioral Health

What happened to IHS Patient Chart? Isn't that an EHR?

IHS Patient Chart was released in December of 2001. Patient Chart provides a graphical interface to RPMS data, greatly facilitating the ability to retrieve information such as lab results, problems, appointments, and so forth. Particularly useful features of Patient Chart include the ability for providers to directly and quickly add and modify entries to the PCC problem list, and to display and graph measurements and lab results in a way that facilitates patient education.

Currently, the majority of Patient Chart end-users are behavioral health providers. A behavioral health component, which offers BH clinicians a graphical interface to the data entry module of the RPMS Behavioral Health System (BHS), was released in Patient Chart in January 2004. This component was well received by the BH provider community and continued development and maintenance of Patient Chart is driven primarily by the needs of these users. The BH component is a fully functional electronic record specific to the needs of behavioral health providers and patients but Patient Chart cannot be considered a true EHR. It does not offer order entry (except for laboratory tests) or primary care or other non-BH visit documentation capabilities. Nevertheless for the BH provider, Patient Chart is an outstanding application, simple to install and intuitive to use.

I am a Behavioral Health provider. Can I use EHR for my records?

Behavioral Health programs in IHS have used the RPMS Behavioral Health System (BHS) for complete electronic documentation of BH visits for a number of years. BHS is available in typical RPMS "roll and scroll", or in a graphical interface version (IHS Patient Chart). The behavioral health database is separate from PCC, although the system can be configured to pass BH diagnoses to PCC. This integration of behavioral and medical information supports coordinated care and improved health outcomes.

At EHR sites, many behavioral health providers expressed a desire to document their visits in EHR to take advantage of the improved access to medical information, TIU note templates, and electronic order/prescription entry. Additionally, expanding the use of the EHR to behavioral health providers supports the integration of primary and behavioral health care and contributes to improved patient outcomes. With the new behavioral health visit functionality, BH face-to-face patient encounters, telephone calls and chart reviews can be entered into RPMS using the EHR. These visits will populate both the PCC and BHS databases. Business rules have been developed to limit access to BH clinical notes. If desired, behavioral health providers can use a combination of the EHR, Patient Chart and BHS to enter data into RPMS and run reports on BH activities.

Behavioral Health programs are reminded that the export process for BHS data is separate from PCC, so submission of behavioral health information, including suicide reporting data, to Areas and national programs requires regular exports from the Behavioral Health System.

On this site we invite you to explore the following:

Use of RPMS EHR by Behavioral Health Providers

RPMS Suicide Reporting Form

Behavioral Health Job Aids

Biopsychosocial Templates

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