National Coordinator Sets Rules

The nation's health IT regulatory office issued its final rule Monday creating a permanent certification program for electronic health record technology, but implementing the change will take some time. A temporary certification program issued last spring remains in effect for the rest of the year while the kinks are worked out.

The new rule improves the "comprehensiveness, transparency, reliability and efficiency" of the temporary EHR certification process, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. ONC will set up "programmatic activities" for implementation throughout the year.

The rules include:

• Requiring accreditation before organizations test or certify health information technology.
• Requiring certification bodies to check on technology performance following certification.
• Allowing "gap certification."

The National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program will develop a process to accredit laboratories to test health IT products. The group's parent organization, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, successfully implemented the temporary certification program, ONC says.

"This final rule completes the two-phased approach ONC began with the proposed rule issued in Spring 2010 and includes several important improvements to our certification processes," David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology, says in a news release. "Our goal is to make the transition to the permanent certification program as seamless as possible."