Health care providers who are eligible to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs now have a new tool to help them on their road to meaningful use. As of November, ONC’s official Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) identifies EHR technologies that have been tested and certified as being technically capable of supporting those providers’ achievement of meaningful use based on Stage 1 criteria outlined in HHS rules published on July 28 of this year.

The CHPL now includes more than 90 certified EHR technologies, and the list continues to grow.

A couple of important points about the CHPL:

1. ONC maintains the CHPL, which is the authoritative, comprehensive, aggregate list of all the EHR technologies certified by an ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB). EHR technologies that have been certified by ONC-ATCBs and appear on CHPL are eligible to be used for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, and will be given a reporting number for that purpose. At the time of registration or attestation with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), eligible providers can use those reporting numbers as part of qualifying for EHR incentive payments. (This part of the process is shown on the CMS timeline for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs milestones.)
2. The Certified Health IT Product List is a snapshot of currently certified EHR technologies. Each Complete EHR and EHR Module on the CHPL has been certified by an ONC-ATCB and reported to ONC. This list is regularly updated as newly certified EHR technologies are reported to ONC.

HHS Resources for Successful Adoption of Certified EHR Technology

With certified EHR technologies now available, eligible health care providers can tap into the other resources HHS has developed to help them adopt and meaningfully use certified EHR technology.

Those resources include:

1. Regional Extension Centers to provide on-the-ground technical assistance across the country
2. The Health IT Workforce Development Program to prepare skilled workers for new jobs in health IT
3. The Beacon Communities Program to highlight best practices
4. The Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs website. This CMS website contains educational resources and fact sheets with complete program information to help eligible providers adopt and demonstrate meaningful use and receive incentive payments.

These programs support certification policies and processes, all with the ultimate goal of improving the nation’s health through the use of EHR technology and other health information technology.

Re-Cap of ONC EHR Certification Policies and Programs

June to August

ONC established the Temporary Certification Program to authorize organizations to test and certify EHR technology and to establish the processes used for that purpose.

ONC published the Standards and Certification Criteria Final Rule. This rule outlined the capabilities EHR technologies must include to support achievement of meaningful use Stage 1 under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.

September

The first ONC Authorized Testing and Certification Bodies were named under the Temporary Certification Program and began testing and certifying EHR technologies based on criteria outlined in the Standards and Certification Criteria Final Rule.

October

ONC published the current Version 1.0 of the Certified Health IT Product List, which lists the EHR products that have been tested and certified under the Temporary Certification Program to the certification criteria adopted by the Secretary and that have been reported to and validated by ONC. In some cases EHR products will have been tested and certified to all applicable adopted certification criteria necessary to meet the definition of certified EHR technology (i.e., those designated Complete EHRs); in other cases they will have been tested and certified to a subset of all of the applicable adopted certification criteria (i.e., those designated EHR Modules), which do not on their own meet the regulatory definition of certified EHR technology.

Version 2.0 of the Certified Health IT Product List is under development and will be available in early 2011. It will provide both additional information, such as a list of the Clinical Quality Measures to which a given product was tested; as well as additional functionality, such as different ways to query and sort the data for viewing. It is also Version 2.0 of the CHPL that will be able to provide the number for reporting to CMS as described above.

As we move forward, we welcome your comments about our efforts and your experiences with implementing health IT.