Already the nation's largest behavioral health IT provider through its ownership of the former Creative Socio-Medics, last year Netsmart Technologies acquired CMHC Systems, which had been the second largest provider, renaming the new enterprise using the corporate moniker, Netsmart. While the CMHC deal got the most attention, it was not by any means acquisitive Netsmart's only transaction in 2005. The company's purchase of behavioral health online staff training and management systems provider Continued Learning happened much more under the radar, but nevertheless could eventually turn out to be just as important to Netsmart's future growth.

That's because over the past few years treatment centers and mental health services providers have been signing up for online services that provide distance training and clinical staff management tools in rapidly increasing numbers. Continued Learning, now renamed Netsmart University, was the first to offer online training services to the behavioral health industry in 1998, according to its director and founder Sheree Graves. Other players have since entered the fray, including San Diego-based Essential Learning, now the largest player in the market.

"Netsmart's financial and marketing muscle have been a huge benefit to the business," says Graves, adding that the company's enormous penetration into the behavioral health space through its IT relationships with more than 1,100 service providers, including over 140 treatment centers, has also been a boon "Our growth has soared since the Netsmart purchase," she says.

In the year since the acquisition was announced, Netsmart University has more than doubled its full scale implementations to 150 behavioral health centers, having signed up such top flight addiction treatment clients as Operation PAR in St. Petersburg, Sacred Heart Rehab in Detroit and fast growing WestCare Foundation, which has operations in 7 states. WestCare looked closely at three different online training products, including Essential Learning, before going with Netsmart University, according Chief Clinical Officer Bob Neri. "They were by far the best for us. They have a great catalogue of courses, and equally important were the management tools that allow me to very efficiently oversee my staff's continuing education." While Neri says that he has been unable yet to exactly quantify the savings from adopting Netsmart University, he says they have been very large. "I am able to monitor the status of my staff training in minutes through the system, and it has helped us substantially in streamlining new hires because we can do things like distribute the employee handbook through the system," he says, adding that very big savings have also been realized on travel and conference fees because far more of staff training is now done in house. "The cost of the signing up for our online training university is extremely modest when compared to the savings that are typically realized," says Graves. "We have seen savings equal as much as 400 percent of the initial cost of signing up after just the first year."

With numbers like these, it's not surprising that behavioral health and addiction treatment providers have been increasingly signing up for online training services, supporting strong growth for the growing numbers of companies entering the market offering such services. But the booming online training market may have a deleterious effect on traditional training companies like U.S. Journal Training, and many others, as treatment providers increasingly balk at paying the high fees for conference attendence, as well as even higher costs for travel, meals and lodging. But providers say that, although they will likely cut back on traditional conferences, they will still support them to some extent because such conferences offer excellent face-to-face networking opportunities that many state regulators require and providers still value.