Community Spotlight: Rutland Mental Health Services breaks down barriers to whole person health care

Meet the team: Meet Jit Singh (Director of Information Technology), Rob Mitchell, (Director of Information Systems), and Scott Louiselle (Director of Quality Improvement) from Rutland Mental Health Services, part of Community Care Network

For over 70 years, Rutland Mental Health Services (RMHS)—part of Community Care Network—has been offering behavioral health services to Vermont’s Rutland-area community. The organization serves area residents of all ages, from early childhood support to elder care programs. Their services include substance use disorder treatment, mental health services, developmental services, and more.

“The community comes to us for mental and behavioral health needs in Rutland County,” says Jit. Scott adds, “I’ve been part of this community for a long time. RMHS is foundational here. It plays a critical role in caring for this community and moving it forward.”  

Innovative problem solving is a hallmark of how RMHS is addressing the mental health challenges facing Vermonters. The team is committed to breaking down old barriers to data sharing that can stand in the way of whole-person care. “Mental health and physical health are so related, and we are putting those pieces together,” says Jit.

Improved Care Coordination through VITLAccess

As patients increasingly seek care from multiple health care organizations, seamless care coordination becomes both more challenging and more important. “When I started in developmental services, the nursing staff had to put in a lot of time chasing down patient health history from multiple providers,” shares Rob. “VITLAccess is a great solution because the nurses can just log in and see the necessary medical files without spending time faxing and calling.”  Rob continues, “We’ve also found that VITLAccess bridges a huge gap when it comes to establishing a new client relationship. By having a centralized information source from VITL, we can get more information about a new patient, in a fraction of the time it used to take.”

Tracking a client’s journey through the medical system has also gotten easier. RMHS now receives admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) event notifications when a patient is admitted to, transferred to, or discharged from an emergency department or inpatient care. The data used to generate those notifications flows through VITL, ultimately providing real-time information for care coordination that helps patients.

Scott shares the example, “Someone’s being discharged from the hospital. RMHS wants to be prepared for that. We want to have the right information so the right people can be in place in the community to take over from an outpatient perspective. From the clinical lens, that’s super important.”

A Staff that Embraces Technology

In addition to prioritizing health data sharing, RMHS is leveraging other technologies to support their teams. They are working on an initiative in partnership with Eleos Health featuring the responsible use of AI as a documentation assistant for RMHC staff. This tool supports therapists, clinicians, and case managers. “We were focusing on two primary areas. One was significantly reducing the writing time,” says Scott. “We’ve reduced writing time by about 51% for the folks using the technology. The speed at which people get notes in on time—we’ve seen a 40% reduction there as well.”

“The shout out here really goes to the staff for their openness to something brand new,” continues Scott. “We were the first designated [mental health services] agency in the state of Vermont to use this technology. So it was new and the staff rose to the challenge.”

As of the end of September 2025, RMHC has about 74 staff trained on the AI documentation assistant. In total, the staff has created about 22,000 notes using Eleos over the course of a year—increasing time that staff can spend on patient care.

From health data sharing to advance whole person care, to investments in technology that improve provider experience, the RMHS team embraces innovation to ensure they are providing the best possible mental and behavioral health care for vulnerable populations in Rutland County.

When they are not working hard behind the scenes at RMHS, you can find Jit immersed in a DIY home project, Scott coaching his two young kids in hockey and volunteering in the community, and Rob staying active outdoors with his three children.

To learn more about RMHS’s essential work, please visit rmhsccn.org.