May 20, 2010
Federal Register
HHS/ONC Recommendations on EHR Certification for Meaningful Use
[E.] Factors Influencing the Proposal of both Temporary and Permanent Certification Programs
Excerpted from Section "E" of a Federal Register document entitled "Proposed Establishment of Certification Programs for Health Information Technology; Proposed Rule" [dated March 10, 2010 (Vol. 75, No. 46) from the Department of Health and Human Services] [45 CFR Part 170; [[Page 11328]] DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Office of the Secretary 45 CFR Part 170 RIN 0991-AB59 Proposed Establishment of Certification Programs for Health Information Technology AGENCY: Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services. ACTION: Proposed rule.
A number of factors played a role in our decision to propose a temporary certification program that could be implemented quickly, and a permanent certification program that would be established for the long term. These factors include the recommendations of the HIT Policy; Committee; the interrelationships of this proposed rule with the HIT Standards and Certification Criteria interim final rule (75 FR 2014) and the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs proposed rule (75; FR 1844); the need for eligible professionals and eligible hospitals to have Certified EHR Technology available in a timely manner; and our consultations with NIST.
1. HIT Policy Committee Recommendations
As noted above, section 3002(b) requires the HIT Policy Committee to make recommendations to the National Coordinator related to the implementation of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure. As part of this responsibility, the HIT Policy Committee made five recommendations to the National Coordinator on August 14, 2009, which support the approach proposed in this rule. The recommendations addressed the scope of the certification process in general and the approach the National Coordinator should take to establish certification programs. The HIT Policy Committee recommended "that in defining the certification process, the following objectives are pursued:
- Focus certification on Meaningful Use.
- Leverage the certification process to improve progress on privacy, security, and interoperability.
- Improve the objectivity and transparency of the certification process.
- Expand certification to include a range of software sources, e.g., open source, self-developed, etc.
- Develop a short-term certification transition plan.''
The National Coordinator reviewed and considered the recommendations made by the HIT Policy Committee and concluded that they should be used to provide direction for the proposals included in this rule. We believe that the proposals in this rule reflect the overall intent of the HIT Policy Committee's recommendations.
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As discussed in the HIT Standards and Certification Criteria interim final rule, and to remain consistent with our previous estimates (75 FR 2039), we believe that approximately 93 commercially developed and open source Complete EHRs and 50 EHR Modules will be tested and certified under our proposed temporary certification program.
Click on Meaningful Use Certification Process to access the full Federal Register document.