Five Firms Accredited to Apply for ONC's Permanent EHR Certification Program

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has accredited five health information technology firms to apply for permanent certification as EHR certifying bodies through the Office of the National Coordinator’s (ONC) Permanent Certification Program for Health IT.

Under the finale rule for the creation of the certification program, finalized in January 2011 and published in the Federal Register, ANSI was selected as the ONC-Approved Accreditor and tasked with the responsibility of accrediting organizations looking to perform certification of Complete EHRs or EHR Modules.

According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a Complete EHR is one that “has been developed to meet, at a minimum, all applicable certification criteria adopted by the Secretary.” Meanwhile, an EHR Module is “any service, component, or combination thereof that can meet the requirements of at least one certification criterion adopted by the Secretary.”

The five firms, which can now apply to the ONC for acceptance in the program, include: the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, Drummond Group, ICSA Laboratories, InfoGard Laboratories and Orion Register – the only firm not currently participating in the meaningful use stage 1 temporary certification program.

The ONC plans to kick off the permanent certification program this summer and will eventually phase out of the previously-established temporary program. Currently, applicants can seek authorization to certify Complete EHRs and/or EHR Modules; however, the program could be expanded in the future to include other health IT software besides EHR.