Certification Commission announces first EHR products certified for hospitals

CHICAGO – November 5, 2007 – The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology announced today that six electronic health record (EHR) products designed for use in acute care hospitals, representing an estimated 25 percent of the inpatient vendor marketplace, applied for and achieved CCHIT CertifiedSM status after undergoing inspections that demonstrated their compliance with 100 percent of the Certification Commission’s published criteria.

“We are pleased that a quarter of the companies selling inpatient EHRs now have a certified product,” said Alisa Ray, executive director of the Commission. “In comparison, our EHR certification program for physician office-based products, which has been very successful, certified about 10 percent of the estimated market for EHR ambulatory products during the first round of inspections in 2006. We are off to a great start with certification of EHR products for hospitals.”

“Digitizing healthcare is important, but unless it is done in a way that ensures critical health information is available to patients and their providers when and where it is needed, we will fall short of the promise that health IT holds,” Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. “By certifying both office-based, and now inpatient EHR products, CCHIT is helping to ensure that EHR products can offer clinical management support, and can exchange information seamlessly and securely so they can be used to improve the quality and safety of health care for consumers.”

In addition to meeting underlying criteria such as security, the certified products were examined for clinician order entry (often called CPOE or “Computerized Physician Order Entry”) and  medication administration capabilities (often called eMAR or “Electronic Medication Administration Record”),  including related clinical decision support.  The Commission focused certification testing on these areas first because they have the lowest rate of adoption in hospitals but have been shown to offer the highest value for improvement  of care.

“The thorough inspection process ensures that certified products have demonstrated their ability to have a positive impact on patient care,” said Certification Commission chair Dr. Mark Leavitt.  “I’d like to congratulate these six companies that now represent the leading edge in advanced EHR products for the inpatient setting.”

“Although the inpatient EHR certification program was only launched in August, hospital IT executives appear aware of the Certification Commission’s work and expect it to impact their purchasing decisions,” said Ray. The Commission contracted with HIMSS Analytics to conduct a survey of senior health IT decision-makers at hospitals in March 2007. The sample size was approximately 350 senior IT executives in hospitals and integrated delivery systems. The results indicated that more than 66 percent reported familiarity with the Commission’s work, and 55 percent of those said certification would be a requirement in their purchase decisions.

The four hospital EHR products that are fully CCHIT CertifiedSM are:

Two additional products are pre-market, conditionally CCHIT CertifiedSM.  Pre-market, conditionally certified EHRs are new products that are fully certified once their operational use in a hospital site has been verified. They are:

Next application period
The Certification Commission’s next application period for inpatient products is Nov. 1-14. Interested parties are invited to log on to www.cchit.org for information on how to prepare for inpatient certification.  

Newly certified ambulatory products
The Certification Commission also announced that nine EHR products for office-based physicians have been certified under the 2007 criteria, bringing the total number of product certifications to 98 – or an estimated 40 percent of the ambulatory vendor marketplace – since the program began in 2006.  The newly certified office-based EHR products are listed on the Commission’s Web site, www.cchit.org.

Additional CCHIT Activities
The Certification Commission announced earlier in 2007 that it will also be specifying certification criteria for EHRs used in additional care settings, such as nursing homes, and by specialized health care providers, such as behavioral health. Development work is expected to begin in 2008. “Making certified EHRs available to additional health care providers and settings, will support adoption of EHRs and move us towards the President’s goal that most Americans have an EHR by 2014,” said Dr. Robert Kolodner, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.  

About the Certification Commission
The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHITSM) is an independent, nonprofit organization that has been recognized by the federal government as an official certification body for electronic health record products. Its mission is to accelerate the adoption of health information technology by creating a credible, sustainable product certification program. The certification requirements are based on widely accepted industry standards and involve the work of hundreds of expert volunteers and input from a variety of stakeholders throughout the health care industry. More information on CCHIT and CCHIT CertifiedSM products is available at www.cchit.org.