HHS Expands Role of EHR Certification Body

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, or CCHIT, has received funding from HHS to expand the scope of its mission -- certifying electronic health record products -- to include EHR products customized to meet the needs of certain medical specialties.

Robert Kolodner, M.D., HHS' interim national coordinator for health information technology, said in a Nov. 28 news release that expanding CCHIT's role will ensure that "more patients will have access to better quality care at better value."

CCHIT Chair Mark Leavitt, M.D., Ph.D., applauded the news of his organization's added responsibilities. "With the phenomenal contributions of our volunteers and a broad group of stakeholders, CCHIT has developed an excellent set of basic criteria for ambulatory EHRs. Now we'll make certification even more valuable by starting to differentiate according to the needs of specialized disciplines and settings," said Leavitt in the news release.

According to Leavitt, CCHIT will choose two or three medical specialties on which to focus its attention during the next year, with more specialties added as time goes on. Medical specialties will be prioritized based on several factors including

CCHIT, a private nonprofit organization, received a contract from HHS in Sept. 2005 to develop a mechanism for certifying health IT products.

Steven Waldren, M.D., director of the Academy's Center for Health Information Technology currently serves as co-chair of CCHIT's ambulatory EHR functionality work group. He agreed that medical specialties have varied health information technology requirements. "CCHIT's plan to pursue specialty certification will help ensure that core functionality -- an integral part of the EHR certification process -- remains core in those medical specialty settings," said Waldren.

"The Academy would like to see CCHIT focus its efforts on a family medicine based-certification profile in the next year," he added.