Permanent EHR Certification Program Delayed by ONC

Dr. Farzad Mostashari the coordinator for the Office of the National Coordinator for Heath IT (ONC) announced last week (click here for the posted announcement) that the permanent EHR certification would be delayed about 6 months, from January 1, 2012 to mid-2012.  This shift also coincides, deliberately, with implementation of the Phase 2 meaningful use standards.

As part of the meaningful EHR use portion of the ARRA stimulus program included not only the creation and implementation of meaningful measures to be reported on electronically, but also includes a portion that the measures need to documented and reported from a certified EHR (Electronic Health Record) program.  The need to have certified EHR products also necessitates that there be approved (or certified) companies that would be certifying bodies whose job it is to test and certify the EHRs for approval.

Around 1200 EHR products currently have “partial” or “complete” EHR certification status.  Our EHR solutions for Medical, Podiatry, and Chiropractic are three of these fully certified products.  Currently every product that holds an EHR certification holds a temporary certification.  This was done because of the compressed time frame of going to from thin air, to final rule, to certified EHRs, to attestation and the payment of stimulus checks over less than two years.  They wanted to get it done and moving NOW, but weren’t ready for an ultimate final solution.  They are still not quite ready for all of continued fallout the next phase (Phase 2) of meaningful use is going to bring.

When you cut though things it boils down to-

• There are not currently enough certifying bodies accredited to certify the number of EHRs that need to be certified (for both new and re-certification).
• They are planning on there being both new meaningful use measures and new EHR rules and they want to insure that the permanently certified EHRs have been appropriately adapted to handle them. (This would also mean that if the Phase 2 meaningful use measures take longer than until mi-2012 to resolve and implement then the permanent certification will probably be bumped again also.)

Additional Resources:

• http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/11/03/2011-28492/temporary-certification-program-notice-of-extension
• http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/2011/11/07/ONC-delays-permanent-program-for-accrediting-EHR-certifiers
• http://www.govhealthit.com/news/onc-delays-permanent-ehr-certifiers-program