EHNAC Releases New 2017 Accreditation Criteria Versions

The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a nonprofit standards development organization and accrediting body for organizations that electronically exchange health care data, recently announced that it has posted new versions of program criteria for public review. The open process for adopting criteria will last 60 days, commencing on September 30, 2016, and ending on November 30, 2016. Feedback is encouraged with regard to the necessity, appropriateness, and workability of the criteria versions proposed for adoption. EHNAC seeks interested parties to provide opinions, comments, and suggestions for the 18 enhanced 2016 criteria versions that have been developed for each of EHNAC's accreditation programs.

"This year brought a number of impactful changes to nearly all of our accreditation programs, including updates relative to the OCR Phase II Protocol, aligning the HIPAA privacy and security criteria across all of our programs, and significant changes to the three DTAAP programs to reflect DirectTrust's new releases of its Certificate and HISP Policies," says Ron Moser, EHNAC senior site reviewer/auditor. "We look forward to receiving the industry's feedback through this 60-day review process as we look to solidify these criteria versions moving into 2017."

The 18 enhanced criteria programs and the new version numbers associated are the following:

1. ACOAP: Accountable Care Organization Accreditation Program (V2.0)
2. CEAP: Cloud Enabled Accreditation Program (V1.1). CEAP is provided only as an add-on program for organizations that have applied for another program. The Cloud Service Provider (CSP) must be FedRAMP-certified, and an additional site visit day is required for reviewing the details of this program.
3. DRAP: Data Registry Accreditation Program (V2.0)
4. DTAAP-CA: Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program for Certificate Authorities (V2.0)
5. DTAAP-HISP: Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program for Health Information Service Providers (V2.0)
6. DTAAP-RA: Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program for Registration Authorities (V2.0)
7. ePAP-EHN: e-Prescribing Accreditation Program (V7.0)
8. EPCSCP-Pharmacy: Electronic Prescription of Controlled Substances Certification Program—Pharmacy Vendor (V2.0)
9. EPCSCP-Prescribing: Electronic Prescription of Controlled Substances Certification Program—Prescribing Vendor (V2.0)
10. FSAP-EHN: Financial Services Accreditation Program for Electronic Health Networks (V3.0)
11. FSAP-Lockbox: Financial Services Accreditation Program for Lockbox Services (V3.0)
12. HIEAP: Health Information Exchange Accreditation Program (V2.0)
13. HNAP-EHN: Healthcare Network Accreditation Program for Electronic Health Networks [Includes Payer] (V11.0)
14. HNAP-Medical Biller: Healthcare Network Accreditation Program for Medical Billers (V2.0)
15. HNAP-TPA: Healthcare Network Accreditation Program for Third Party Administrators (V2.0)
16. MSOAP: Management Service Organization Accreditation Program (V2.0)
17. OSAP: Outsourced Services Accreditation Program (V2.0). OSAP includes 10 different accreditation programs tailored for accountable care organizations, call centers, data centers, DRP facilities, health information exchanges, media storage, network administrators, printing, product development, and scanning.
18. PMSAP: Practice Management System Accreditation Program (V2.0)

The EHNAC criteria for each of its accreditation programs sets the foundational requirements for measuring an organization's ability to meet federal and state health care reform mandates such as HIPAA, Omnibus, ARRA/HITECH, ACA, and other mandates for covered entities and business associates focusing on the areas of privacy, security, confidentiality, best practices, procedures, and assets.

Visit www.ehnac.org for more details or to review the latest EHNAC criteria and submit feedback during this comment period through the Criteria Comment Form.

Source: Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission