AKAIMS
Alaska's Automated Information Management System
History and Progress
The Alaska Automated Information Management
System project was initiated in February 2003 to take advantage
of a SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment project promoting
collaboration and use of technology among state and local government
substance abuse treatment agencies. At that time, as part of Alaska’s
initiative to integrate its mental health and substance abuse agencies
into the Division of Behavioral Health, the Division of Alcoholism
and Drug Abuse (ADA) and the Division of Mental Health and Developmental
Disabilities (DMHDD) elected to launch a joint project that built
on the CSAT project (the Web Infrastructure for Treatment Services
- WITS) to create a single, web-based application and database that
would meet reporting requirements for behavioral health provider grantees
and provide basic capabilities for clinical information management
not previously available.
The project officially started in February of
2003, when the State awarded a contract to Westat (national WITS project manager for CSAT). The first AKAIMS Steering Committee meeting
was held in March 2003 to kick off the review process necessary to
adapt WITS to Alaska’s unique needs. The Steering Committee
consists of a cross-section from various behavioral health care services
stakeholder groups: the Division of Behavioral Health (DBH), the Alaska
Mental Health Trust Authority (AMHTA), the Alaska Behavioral Health
Association (ABHA), the Substance Abuse Directors’ Association
(SADA) and other interested behavioral health related policy-making
groups, and, providers themselves.
AKAIMS is a “free”, evolving, web-based application
and database that serves dual purposes, a management information
system (MIS) and clinical documentation tool. As an MIS tool, the
system allows the Division to meet current and emerging State and
Federal reporting requirements, such as State Quarterly Reporting,
TEDS, GPRA, NOMS and MH/SA Block Grant. As a clinical documentation
tool, AKAIMS provides an agency the ability to create a full Electronic
Medical Record (EMR) compliant with HIPAA and 42-CFR part II standards.
Providers have the ability to assess patients, administer facilities,
manage waitlists and collect outcome measurement data in real-time
via a secure, web-based framework.
In parallel, DBH is supporting an effort for those providers
who have existing clinical information systems, to allow
the submission of required data from those systems through an electronic
data interchange (EDI) mechanism to the Data Repository. This effort
allows providers to maintain their own information technology investments
while still being fully compliant with state and federal reporting
requirements.
AKAIMS and the Data Repository represent a key part of the
transition to a behavioral health model for the state. Support for
the State’s Behavioral Health Integration Project (BHIP),
lowering the burden of Medicaid compliance, solving longstanding reporting
issues, and the sharing of best practices with other WITS Collaboration
Partnership states have all come about because of the commitment and
hard work of state and provider staff across the behavioral health
treatment system. We look forward to this continuing transformation,
furthering Alaska’s role as a national leader, supporting the
recovery of persons with behavioral health treatment needs through
innovations in practice and technology.