CCHIT's Exclusive EMR Certification Role in Question

Here's a great summary on the increasing uncertainty and political machinations around EMR certification.

CCHIT’s certification criteria are feature, structure and process-oriented, yet the latest Meaningful Use criteria from the ONC's HIT Policy Committee not. The Meaningful Use Matrix consists of five “Health Outcomes Policy Priorities” and associated Care Goals, Objectives and Measures. The Committee anticipated that the latter would be transformed into EHR certification criteria at a later date (some time around the Spring of 2010).

The criteria are not consistent with those used by CCHIT to certify EHRs. They are outcomes-oriented (CCHIT’s are feature, structure and process-oriented), and they do not require that any particular technology (such as the client-server applications used by the legacy vendors who sit on the board of CCHIT) be used to achieve the results.

Subsequently, HHS announced that it planned to assume responsibility for deciding which EHR systems qualified for bonus payouts under Medicare, and shortly thereafter, ONC’s HIT Policy Committee said that it planned to recommend that several entities should certify EHR systems.

In its announcement, the Committee envisioned the establishment of 10 to 12 such agencies.

The upshot of these moves by the Federal government are that (1)CCHIT no longer decides what criteria will be used to certify EHRs, and (2)its days as the exclusive provider of EHR certification services are numbered.

In response, CCHIT adjusted their certification offering (since they're certifying EMRs for existing criteria, rather than the criteria the HIT Policy Committee comes up with next year). Here's Glenn Laffel's take:

But as mentioned above, ONC won’t sign-off on its “meaningful use” criteria until the spring of 2010. In effect, CCHIT is asking EHR vendors to gamble that CCHIT can, like a fortune teller at a carnival, predict what those final recommendations will be.

"Choose the risk you want to take," CCHIT Chairman Mark Leavitt recently challenged vendors. "Go ahead now (with a CCHIT review) and have an extra year to implement, with a small risk that there will be some gap in which EHR systems would have to be updated to receive final certification…" or risk the consequences of sitting on your hands, he presumably would add.

Never mind that the latest information is in the public domain, and that any vendor can compare it against their current capabilities and development plans! Disregard the fact that CCHIT has no track-record in promulgating outcomes-oriented certification criteria or in certifying against them!

What is CCHIT charging for its fortune-telling expertise? According to Government HealthIT, a HIMSS sponsored publication, prices for modular certification begin at $6,000 for up to 2 modules. They rise to $24,000 for up to 20 modules and to $33,000 for more than 20.

As always, fees for CCHIT’s comprehensive certification are $37,000 for ambulatory systems and $49,000 for hospital systems. Annual renewal costs are $9,000 for each.

That’s chump-change for the legacy vendors whose top executives sit on the board of CCHIT, but it guarantees nothing.

All this confusion about unknown criteria, and who exactly will do the certifying has a definite impact on medical device interoperability that's scheduled for 2015 in the Meaningful Use Matrix.

The Connectologist

CCHIT's Exclusive EMR Certification Role in Question

Comments (0)

Leave a comment...