November 16, 2021 – The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS), in partnership with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s Recovery Ohio initiative, today announced that TreatmentConnection.com, a public online portal that enables people to anonymously self-screen and seek mental health and addiction treatment for themselves or others from nearby providers, is now available to residents of Northeast Ohio through the Behavioral Health Connection (B-CON), an online behavioral health service registry and referral platform.
The new portal is available to residents in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Portage, and Summit counties. B-CON and Treatment Connection are part of a larger effort in Ohio to provide people with serious mental illness and addiction, and their family and friends, with resources to help them connect to treatment and care in their communities.
Launched in September 2020, B-CON is managed by OhioMHAS and is built on the OpenBeds® platform, which provides a real-time view of available behavioral health treatment services provided by an organization. OpenBeds launched as a provider-facing resource in Northeast Ohio in late 2020. Now, the public-facing tool, TreatmentConnection.com, is live. OpenBeds and Treatment Connection are products of Bamboo Health.
“OpenBeds and Treatment Connection are innovative products intended to provide Ohioans living with mental illness and addiction timely access to the treatment they need,” said OhioMHAS Director Lori Criss. “TreatmentConnection.com provides another way to access accurate information about the services available in their community, as well as the ability to reach out to those service providers to begin potentially life-changing conversations.”
With Treatment Connection, Northeast Ohioans seeking help for mental health and addiction challenges have self-service access to:
- A decision support self-assessment tool to help point people to options for treatment
- A searchable list of trusted treatment services and providers by zip code and distance
- Resources and educational materials
- Contact information for providers with current treatment capacity
- A means to communicate with treatment providers anonymously about next steps using a confidential numeric identifier.
“People who seek treatment for substance abuse or mental health issues far too often don’t know where to turn or are reluctant to reach out for help because of the perceived stigma,” said OhioMHAS Medical Director Justin Trevino, M.D. “Offering Northeast Ohioans a way to find the treatment facilities most appropriate for them and to reach out anonymously will improve patient care while reducing overcrowding in emergency departments.”
Treatment providers in Northeast Ohio can enroll their facility’s service(s) on the OpenBeds-Treatment Connection public-facing portal so they are visible to people searching for assistance in coping with mental health or addiction problems. Providers receiving inquiries about their services can respond through the Treatment Connection system. All information in the system about people inquiring about services is anonymous to protect their privacy and confidentiality. All treatment providers are vetted by OhioMHAS for appropriate licensure and certification.
“Taking the step to seek treatment for mental health or substance use conditions can be confusing and intimidating for people who are in a fragile state to begin with,” said Nishi Rawat, M.D., chief medical officer of Bamboo Health and co-founder of OpenBeds. “The best way to encourage these people to seek treatment is to make the process as easy and unthreatening as possible. That’s what Treatment Connection will do for Northeast Ohioans.”
Though the portal is initially being rolled out to residents in seven northeast Ohio counties, OhioMHAS anticipates extending the resource statewide as part of the Department’s ongoing commitment to promoting greater access to behavioral health care services. Click HERE to view a public service announcement showcasing the new service.
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About Treatment Connection
Treatment Connection is an online portal that enables those seeking mental health and addiction treatment for themselves or others to anonymously search for nearby providers, evaluate the type of care needed and submit confidential online referral inquiries to appropriate treatment providers vetted by the state. Treatment Connection is part of OpenBeds, a cloud-based platform owned by Bamboo Health that provides real-time behavioral health treatment facility and program availability, digital referrals, two-way digital provider communication, data aggregation and analytics, and clinical decision support resources. For more information, please visit www.treatmentconnection.com and follow Treatment Connection on Twitter.
About Bamboo Health
Bamboo Health, formerly Appriss Health and PatientPing, is a healthcare technology solutions company, focused on fostering care collaboration and providing information and actionable insights across the entire continuum of care. As one of the largest, most diverse care collaboration networks in the country, our technology solutions equip healthcare providers and payers with software, information, and insights to facilitate whole person care across the physical and behavioral health spectrums. By serving 2,500 hospitals, 7,800 post-acute facilities, 25,000 pharmacies, 37 health plans, 45 state governments, and over one million acute and ambulatory providers through more than 500 clinical information systems electronically, we impact over 1 billion patient encounters annually in provider workflow. Health systems, payers, providers, pharmacies, governments, individuals, and other organizations rely on Bamboo Health to improve care and reduce cost. Visit Bamboo Health to learn more.
