A technology certification body has put its stamp of approval on six electronic health record products for acute-care hospitals.
The products are the first inpatient EHR systems to obtain the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology’s CCHIT Certified status. The six products represent an estimated 25 percent of the inpatient market, according to CCHIT.
In 2006, the organization began inspecting and certifying physician office-based EHR products. The federal government has designated CCHIT as a certification body for EHR systems.
Of the six hospital products receiving certification, four are fully CCHIT Certified. Those are Computer Programs and Systems’ CPSI System Version 15, Eclipsys’ Sunrise Acute Care 4.5 SP4, Epic Systems’ EpicCare Inpatient, and Healthcare Management Systems’ Healthcare Management Systems 7.0.
The other two products are new offerings that are conditionally certified: Prognosis Health Information Systems’ ChartAccess 1.0 and Siemens Medical Solutions’ Soarian Clinicals 2.0C5 with Siemens Pharmacy and Medication Administration Check 24.0.
Those products will be fully certified once their operational use in a hospital has been verified, according to CCHIT.
CCHIT evaluated the products for compliance with its 191 certification criteria for inpatient EHR systems, a CCHIT spokeswoman said. The criteria span EHR functionality, interoperability and security. Conformance testing focused on clinician order entry and medication administration modules.
The spokeswoman said the certification program pursued those EHR components because they have the lowest adoption rate in hospitals but can have the highest impact on patient safety.
Meanwhile, CCHIT has opened the next round of certification. Vendors seeking approval for their inpatient products may apply for certification through Nov. 14. The testing process takes about three months, so the organization expects to make the next certification announcements in late January 2008, the spokeswoman said.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
