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April 15 - 27 Vendors Apply for Ambulatory EHR Certification

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology announced that it received 27 additional applications from ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) vendors as the deadline for certification under the 2007 criteria approached. This final group included 14 new applicants, as well as 13 vendors with products previously certified under the 2006 criteria.

In addition, four new inpatient certification applications were received, which could bring the total number of certified inpatient product vendors to more than 50% of the estimated U.S. market. That would represent a first-year vendor acceptance rate even higher than that achieved in the first year of ambulatory product certification.

“The last-minute rush confirms for us that vendors see significant market impact from certification,” says Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD, Certification Commission chairman. “Fortunately, our program staff anticipated this possibility, so they still expect to complete all certifications by July 1.”

The LAIKA interoperability testing tool, developed in partnership with the MITRE Corporation, was released on time and has already been put into service to support testing during the ambulatory EHR pilots. The testing software, developed under an open source license making free and publicly available, will be used by the Certification Commission on a secure platform during the inspection of a product’s compliance.

Other aspects of the pilot test are still under way, and the list of participating vendors will be announced when all pilot tests are completed. The commission announced these additional dates for the 2008 certification development program:

• Ambulatory EHR: The proposed final criteria and test scripts will be published by April 17. Final public comments will be taken through April 30. The commission will only accept comments on changes made since the previous draft was published. The final ambulatory criteria and test scripts for 2008 will be published May 20, following approval from the Board of Commissioners. Applications for certification under 2008 ambulatory EHR criteria will be accepted July 1 through 14 with the first 2008 certified products announced together in mid-October. Application for endorsements in child health and cardiovascular medicine are on the same schedule as ambulatory.

• Inpatient and Emergency Department EHRs: Additional pilot testing and refinement is being performed before the proposed final criteria and test scripts can be published. Milestone dates will be announced as soon as they are available.

• Enterprise EHR: Vendors that have certified products in all three domains—ambulatory, inpatient, and emergency department—can apply for enterprise certification by demonstrating interoperability between those systems. The test script for enterprise certification will be published and comments received on the same schedule as inpatient and emergency department.

• Network (health information exchange): The first network test scripts will be available for public comment from April 17 through May 16. The commission invites interested health information exchanges to apply for participation in the network certification pilots during the application period from April 21 through May 9. The application form will be available at cchit.org/pilot. The network certification program is planned for launch in October.

Source: Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology

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