Preliminary Proposed Rule for HIT Certification Programs is on the Table Now

We reported to you back in January that the first round of official documentation was out for “Meaningful Use” and “Certified” EHRs definitions.  Well, the 60-day comment period is over and the final interim rule has been issued.  National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dr.David Blumenthal, announced yesterday afternoon that the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officially released a notice of proposed rule-making (NPRM) outlining the proposed approach for establishing a certification program to test and certify electronic health records (EHRs).



You might remember that part of the HITECH Act is the development of a certification program for EHRs.  This program is to give you (buyers and users) of EHR technology the security of knowing that your EHR is has the necessary functionality and security to help meet meaningful use criteria. This will allow you to know that your program is able to meet the criteria for meaningful use so that you can safely purchase your EHR and know that you can bill out to earn as much of the ARRA stimulus funds as possible for you.

The current proposed rule incorporates two phases of development for the certification program:   phased approach provides a bridge  to detailed guidelines to support an ongoing program of testing and certification of health IT.

• First, this proposed program creates a temporary certification process under which the National Coordinator would authorize organizations to assume many of the responsibilities for certification.  Later these responsibilities will be fulfilled by the permanent certification program. They propose transitioning much of the responsibility for testing and certification to organizations in the private sector as permanent program gets put in to place.
• Second, is the publication of the proposed rule on the Establishment of Certification Programs for Health Information Technology, which starts here.  Again this is an interim final ruling, as they work towards an actual final ruling.

Per Dr. Blumenthal's message, "The rule-making process will take time, so this phased approach provides a bridge  to detailed guidelines to support an ongoing program of testing and certification of health IT."