The National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare began accepting applications for a health information technology learning community to help mental healthcare providers meet the federal requirements for the meaningful use of electronic health records.

The community is designed to help make up for that fact that mental health providers, which were not eligible for federal EHR incentive payments, are lagging far behind in EHR adoption, according to the council's website.

Michael Lardiere, vice president of health IT and strategic development, will lead the community, which will last six months and focus on such things as: organizational readiness assessments, personnel planning and capital planning. Other experts will also be featured in the community.