Cloud

State and Local Governments Increase Access to Behavioral Health Resources

Officials credit cloud technologies with breaking down silos and assisting people in need.

Adam Stone writes on technology trends from Annapolis, Md., with a focus on government IT, military and first-responder technologies.

In Illinois, as elsewhere, behavioral health services have been in high demand in trying times. State officials are working to help families obtain timely access to care.

“What parents have told us, and what many state agency partners agree with, is that it’s very difficult as a parent to know where to get help,” says Dana Weiner, director of the Illinois Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative. “It requires lots of searching, and what you get depends on which doorway you come in.”

Illinois improved access to resources through cloud migration, and the state is not alone. Nationwide, state and local agencies are looking to technology modernization to make mental health services more readily available.

Experts point to a number of avenues in which governments can improve access to, and delivery of, behavioral health services. Mobile phone apps, for example, “can help individuals track progress on their individualized treatment goals, or monitor and manage their own behavioral triggers,” says Terri Timberlake-Briscoe, manager of government and public sector at EY.

In addition, “technological improvements in patient data management and data warehouses are leading to better care coordination and overall enhancements in the patient experience,” she says.

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Lighting a BEACON for Illinois Youth

Earlier this year, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker joined the state’s Department of Human Services and Google Public Sector to announce the creation of BEACON (Behavioral Health Care and Ongoing Navigation), a service access portal for Illinois youth.

The system, which went live this summer, “makes it easier for families to see and access the things that their children are eligible for, things that are provided either by the state or by community-based providers,” Weiner says.

When families first seek help, “there are a lot of places they could turn that wouldn’t give them a comprehensive listing,” she says. “BEACON gives them that single place to go, and it can connect them with a human being.”

The system can steer families to needed resources, and it can get them in touch with resource coordinators and clinical specialists who concentrate on particular clinical profiles. Thanks to the Google Cloud infrastructure, families can easily upload psychological evaluations or birth certificates, “things they’re asked for many times as they document their eligibility,” Weiner says.

We have six child-serving agencies in our state, and they operated in silos in the past.”

Dana Weiner Director, Illinois Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative

BEACON also enables state agencies to better communicate with each other, “which historically has been one of the biggest problems,” she says. “We have six child-serving agencies in our state, and they operated in silos in the past.”

A rudimentary version of the cloud-based portal initially demonstrated a high level of collaboration.

“We’ve tested that strategy with over 400 cases and demonstrated that we can work more quickly and efficiently on getting kids services if the agencies can talk to each other,” Weiner says.

Enabling Nimble Service Delivery

In Dauphin County, Pa., a modernized, cloud-based telecommunications system is helping behavioral-care teams to be more effective.

The county’s 25-year-old phone system “tied workers to their desks,” says IT Director and CIO Elizabeth Parry. “Our mental health teams who are taking these very urgent phone calls had to be in the office staffing the phones 24/7 — and they had to hope the phone system was working that day.”

In an environment where people need to react quickly, “that doesn’t make them very nimble,” she says.

165K

The number of Illinois children aged 0-20 who received a Medicaid-paid outpatient mental health service in FY22

Source: illinois.gov, “Blueprint for Transformation: A Vision for Improved Behavioral Healthcare for Illinois Children,” February 2023

The county partnered with Avaya to implement a cloud-based phone system that offered remote access and videoconferencing.

“The new system allows them to take calls wherever they need to take calls, whether that’s in the office or sitting at the hospital with a client,” Parry says.

“During snow days, they don’t have to figure out how to get into the office. They log in from home, and they’re able to take their calls from their computers,” she adds.

As a cloud-based system, “it’s also not relying necessarily on old hardware that’s sitting in our office. As long as they’ve got an internet connection, they’re good to go,” she says. “If the internet goes down in our building, they can very easily relocate somewhere else to take those calls. It just makes them so much more flexible.”

Selecting the Right Partner Is Key

As state and local agencies look to modernize in support of behavioral health, it’s important to team with the right vendor. In Illinois, “Google is our partner in developing this,” Weiner says. “They are building something that will be a state-of-the-art example for other states.”

Illinois has a master contract with Google, “so when we began thinking about who might build this more robust version of the test portal, Google was one of the vendors that was in the mix,” she says.

“Google is really phenomenal at building something that reflects what people have asked for, what it is that we are prioritizing. They’ve been flexible and very efficient and quick at doing this,” she says.

By migrating to the cloud, Weiner says, the state has made significant strides in service delivery: “The outcome indicators are lower wait times for services, fewer hospitalizations for psychiatric reasons, and lower parental stress and frustration around seeking service.”

With the cloud, state agencies can “get kids help faster, while minimizing frustration and confusion on the part of their parents,” she says.

Citizens Help to Choose

In Dauphin County, Pa., IT Director and CIO Elizabeth Parry took a novel approach to upgrading the telecom system. After narrowing the field to two vendors, she invited users to weigh in.

“People don’t like change, so user adoption is important, especially when you’re going to do something with their phones. When you change that, the simplest part of their day can become difficult,” she says.

Over the course of three weeks, users were able to test drive the competing systems side by side. “I had one of my people give the tour. No salespeople allowed, the system had to speak for itself,” she says. “At the end, they took a little survey: ease of use, user accessibility, videoconferencing, overall satisfaction.”

The clear winner, with 86% favorability, was Avaya.

For IT leaders looking to upgrade, it’s important to give users “a choice and a voice in choosing the solution,” she says. “If they pick the system, they’re less likely to yell at me. They’re less likely to come back and say, ‘You picked this phone system, and we hate it.’ We didn’t pick it, they did.”

Photography by Matthew Gilson