Cantata Health Solutions: Poised to Disrupt the Behavioral Health and Human Services Markets with a Modern EHR

It’s a common refrain in healthcare: technology advancements hold great promise, but they’re adopted unevenly across the industry. This is particularly true in behavioral health and human services, complex markets in which providers are serving some of the most at-risk populations, but are often relying on aging, suboptimal technology.

Cantata Health Solutions is helping transform the way safety-net healthcare providers operate with its Arize platform, a modern, integrated software solution that combines electronic health records (EHR), revenue cycle management (RCM), closed-loop medication management, and consumer engagement and input into a seamless, user-friendly interface. The Arize platform enhances patient care, streamlines administrative processes, and supports the overall well-being of patients and healthcare professionals.

In this blog post, Cantata CEO, Alan Tillinghast, shares his perspectives on the increasingly complex environment customers operate in and the vital role that technology must play—plus how his experience working at a safety-net provider inspired him to bring a modern technology solution to fill the market’s unmet needs.

How did your first-hand experience working in a leading provider organization inform your view of the needs in the market?

Our customers work in incredibly challenging environments. I know because I’ve walked in their shoes. I worked for many years as the chief strategy and information officer for Samaritan Daytop Village, one of New York’s largest health and human services providers. Our customers are often safety-net providers who serve at-risk populations with highly complex needs. And just like many other areas of healthcare, they are experiencing significant workforce shortages, high turnover, and burnout. These challenges are difficult enough to manage, and they’re compounded by aging technology systems that don’t meet the providers’ basic needs and often add steps and effort to processes as opposed to streamlining them.

Providers are constantly struggling to retain staff, and when they are forced to use systems that make their job harder rather than easier, at a time when patient needs are becoming more complicated, it just doesn’t work. People are used to the ease and functionality provided by solutions they use every day, like their phone, search engines, and online shopping tools. These types of solutions have set the bar for the user experience; and solutions developed decades ago simply can’t match that. We recognized that the only way to get there was to build a new solution from the ground up—to bring a truly modern technology experience to these providers—so that was our focus with the Arize platform.

How far behind are most technology systems in this space, and how does that impact providers?

Virtually every product in this space is at least 20 years old, and considering how quickly technology advances, that’s like driving a Model T in the age of electric cars. The systems used by many providers in this space simply can no longer evolve to meet their changing needs.

For example, the days of providers always sitting at a desk with a computer are gone. But older technology doesn’t account for today’s mobile-first mentality, so the industry has built additional products to deliver some parts of the solution in mobile platforms, which then have to be maintained and updated every time the core system changes. We built the Arize platform so team members can access it at any time, from any location and from any device, which is particularly helpful to staff members in the field. It helps them capture vital information in real time where the person receiving services is, regardless of the location.

How does the clinical workforce shortage in the healthcare industry exacerbate the challenges Cantata’s customers face?

The annual turnover rate for the health and human services industry is typically over 30%, and the rate for social work is closer to 40%. Imagine losing a third of your staff every year. When I was at Samaritan, we had over 1,700 people, so that would mean roughly 500 new people each year. Do you really want to train all of those people to use an arcane user interface that isn’t intuitive?

Today, one of the main factors driving procurement decisions is clinician satisfaction and retention. When I talk to the leaders of these provider organizations, they focus on their staff and whether a new system works the way they work. Too many of the legacy systems in this space force providers to adapt to the way the technology works, and that’s backwards. These systems should be built to adapt to the provider’s workflow, which means less disruption for providers and more time with patients.

Can you speak to the growing focus on person-centered care among providers and how Arize supports that practice?

It’s clinically proven that the more engaged a person is with their care—whether it’s mental health, substance use, or any other condition—the better the outcomes are. Person-centered care is based on a couple of factors. One is bringing the services to where the people are. These services aren’t always delivered in a building; if the neediest people are in the park, then you meet them in the park. This is why we built Arize to be a mobile-first solution.

The second factor is enabling the person to be a part of their care, and that requires not only giving them access to their health records but allowing them to contribute to the records and participate in the documentation of their care. Because Arize is a modern platform, that functionality is built directly into the system. Most of our competitors built their core EHR system years ago on older technology and added this new functionality more recently, so they have a separate system that has to interface with the EHR, adding complexity.

What other advantages does Arize offer as a modern technology platform?

I already mentioned that Arize is a mobile-first solution, available any time, in any location, on any device—that’s a significant advancement. Arize is also highly extensible; it can be easily configured to a customer’s existing workflows by non-technical users, so staff members don’t have to change the way they work, which minimizes disruption and optimizes productivity. There are self-service capabilities that allow our customers to configure key features themselves, which reduces the need for ongoing support and gives customers a sense of ownership and control. And we’re leveraging generative AI technologies to summarize relevant and pertinent clinical and case information for an at-a-glance view of client treatment progress, which improves continuity of care across multiple providers and helps identify any treatment gaps. We’re also evaluating different AI technologies to aid in documentation and note writing to reduce the administrative burden and free up clinicians to spend more time with clients.

All of this is designed to improve staff productivity and satisfaction, which are two critical factors in reducing clinician burnout and turnover today.

Where do you see growth potential for Cantata, and how are you positioning the company for success?

The Arize platform is a highly extensible architecture, designed to grow and expand to meet our customers’ growing needs. For example, unlike many competitive offerings that were designed to meet one state’s requirements, Arize is built to accommodate any state’s requirements. That positions us particularly well to meet the needs of providers serving at-risk populations, operating across multiple jurisdictions, or looking to expand their services.

Another example is the advanced medication management capabilities offered with Arize, which represent a significant leap forward in patient safety. These capabilities allow larger organizations that treat clients across a full spectrum of care, inpatient through outpatient, to leverage a single solution that can follow clients throughout their treatments. This positions Cantata as one of a small group of solution providers that can meet the needs of these larger organizations.

Beyond the Arize platform, is there anything else you’d like to highlight about Cantata?

Cantata became a virtual company prior to the pandemic, and being virtual remains a core strength today. It has allowed us to recruit and retain a team of industry veterans who have worked at both provider organizations and other technology providers in the industry. We hire people who are passionate about the markets our customers serve and want to help them provide the highest quality services. We understand the complex challenges our customers face, and we have seen the limitations of the technology solutions available to them. Our collective expertise uniquely positions us to offer the modern solutions that providers deserve.

For more information on Cantata Health Solutions and the Arize platform, visit https://cantatahealth.com.