CCHIT AWARDED HHS CONTRACT FOR HEALTH IT PRODUCT CERTIFICATION
Collaborative Certification Effort Gains Funding, Momentum

Chicago, October 6, 2005—The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information TechnologySM (CCHIT) announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop, create prototypes for, and evaluate the certification criteria and inspection process for electronic health records (EHRs). The base contract, totaling $7.5 million over a three-year period, will address three areas of certification – ambulatory EHRs, inpatient EHRs, and the infrastructure components through which they interoperate. An optional $1.2 million extension to continue refinement and assessment of the processes during a fourth year will be up for consideration as the base period is completed.

“This contract will allow us to make compliance certification a reality and to help accelerate the adoption of robust, interoperable health information technology (HIT),” said Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD, CCHIT chair. “Thanks to the contributions of many, we have made rapid progress and are prepared to move forward, working collaboratively with the newly created American Health Information Community (AHIC), other HHS contractors, government agencies, and an expanded stakeholder group that includes consumers, safety net providers, quality organizations, public health agencies, and clinical researchers.”

Certification of EHRs and the infrastructures or networks through which they interoperate is expected to accelerate HIT adoption by:

• Reducing the risk of EHR investment by providers and directing those investments toward products that have the necessary functionality to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of care.
• Protecting the privacy of health information by ensuring adequate security standards within EHR products and network infrastructure.
• Ensuring the interoperability of EHRs through standards-based compatibility with the emerging National Health Information Network (NHIN) architecture.
• Facilitating the availability of incentives for provider adoption of EHRs offered by healthcare purchasers and payers.

The Commission has already made significant progress toward certification readiness, publishing and accepting public comment on the first two versions of its work related to ambulatory EHR functionality, interoperability, security and reliability, and the certification process. On Sept. 7, 2005, CCHIT opened a 30-day public comment period for the newest work focused on Use Cases and Certification Process. These materials are available at www.cchit.org. The final version of the criteria and the process will be pilot tested with actual EHR products beginning in December 2005, and the first round of product certification is planned to be available by March 2006.

“One of the first actions under this new contract will be to conduct a nationwide search for a number of key staff positions,” says Linda Kloss, MA, RHIA, AHIMA CEO. “This is a critical first step as the CCHIT meets the aggressive goals set forth by HHS under the terms of this contract.” The Chicago-based executive search firm Quick Leonard Keiffer will manage this search process. Interested candidates should submit a cover letter and resume to cchit@qlksearch.com or call 312-876-9800 for more information.

CCHIT was founded in 2004 with seed funding from three leading industry associations in healthcare information management and technology – the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and The National Alliance for Health Information Technology (Alliance). Additional funding support came in 2005 from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Physicians (ACP), the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), Hospital Corporation of America, McKesson, Sutter Health, United Health Foundation, and WellPoint Health Networks, Inc.

About CCHIT
The mission of CCHIT is to accelerate the adoption of robust, interoperable healthcare information technology throughout the United States by creating an efficient, credible, sustainable mechanism for the certification of healthcare IT products. More information on the CCHIT is available at www.cchit.org.