OpenEMR Certification

From OpenEMR Project Wiki
Revision as of 03:02, 15 November 2009 by Bradymiller (talk | contribs)

We have had four organizational teleconferences and here are the transcripts:


The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has published ambulatory certification criteria on their web page: CCHIT Web Site - look here for for the most current information. CCHIT has been in existence since about 2006 and the criteria have been revised several times.

The United States Department of Health and Human services and the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology have published a definition of what they consider to be Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records. These criteria have divided into five very broad policies:

1. Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities
2. Engage patients and families
3. Improve care coordination
4. Improve population and public health
5. Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information


From there the Criteria are further subdivided into the large categories of Functionality, Interoperability, and Security:

Functionality

The ability to create and handle electronic records for all of a physician practice's patients, as well as computerize the flow of work in the office. There are approximately 400 functionality criteria. The areas covered are:

  • Organizing patient data
  • Compiling lists
  • Receiving and displaying information
  • Creating orders
  • Supporting decisions
  • Authorized sharing
  • Administrative and billing support
  • Graphical reports
  • Automatic alerts
  • Maintaining documents and guidelines
  • Disease and drug management


2011 Objectives


Interoperability

The ability to receive and send electronic data between an EHR and outside sources of information such as labs, pharmacies and other EHRs in physician offices and hospitals. There are approximately two dozen Interoperability criteria.

The broad areas required are:

  • Laboratory results
  • Electronic medication prescribing
  • Exchange summary of documents


5. Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information (Security)

The ability to maintain patient information safe and private. CCHIT requires ambulatory EHR products to provide state-of-the-art technical capabilities.

The broad areas covered are:


Dear Ronald Leemhuis did some early testing of how OpenEMR stacks up against the 2008 criteria: InitialFunctionalityTesting

This topic had been much discussed by the OpenEMR project at SourceForge:


CCHIT To Do List: What we Need to do and who has volunteered to work on it can be found here.

Retrieved from "https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php?title=OpenEMR_Certification&oldid=9863"