Certification Commission Names New Trustees

Opens Market Survey for Future Program Expansion

CHICAGO – Nov 20, 2008 – The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT®) today announced three appointments to its expanded nine-member board of trustees, which has fiduciary responsibility for the not-for-profit organization. The new trustees will join with current members to provide leadership in the areas of fiscal oversight and stewardship of assets, organizational strategy, evaluation of senior management, and resolution of any conflicts of interest involving the Commission’s management and its 21-member board of commissioners. In contrast to the board of trustees, the board of commissioners guides and approves the work of the voluntary work groups and staff as they develop certification criteria, inspection processes and policy.

Trustees serve three-year staggered terms. The new appointees are:

Meighan Girgus, Executive Vice President, Healthcare Markets, American Heart Association (AHA), Dallas, Texas.

Wes Rishel, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst, Gartner healthcare provider research practice, Alameda, Calif.

Bruce Taffel, M.D., Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Shared Health, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Ms. Girgus oversees AHA business units and areas of focus including quality improvement, health information technology, patient and professional education, strategic alliances, healthcare marketing and disease management. She has served on the Certification Commission’s Personal Health Record Advisory Task Force and as an expert panel member with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also launched the American Stroke Association, now a division of the AHA. Mr. Rishel’s expertise with Gartner is in the areas of electronic medical records, interoperability, health information exchanges and underlying technologies of healthcare IT. He previously served on CCHIT’s board of commissioners. He was founding technical chair of Health Level Seven, chaired its board of directors in 2002 and 2003 and continues on the board.  Dr. Taffel’s responsibilities at Shared Health, a clinical data sharing and application solutions company, include product strategy, solutions development, clinician knowledge and terminology services, physician relations and member adoption, and corporate management. He was previously chief medical officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. He is on the board of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology. A full list of trustees is available at cchit.org/trustees.

Expansion of certification under consideration

In December the Commission will begin taking submissions from the healthcare industry for expanding the scope of its certification programs. From its initial focus on certifying ambulatory and inpatient electronic health records (EHRs), and health information exchanges (HIEs), the Commission has expanded since 2006 into emergency department EHR products, and it created a certification process under which vendors of ambulatory EHRs can demonstrate additional capabilities to serve child health and cardiovascular medicine.  Certification for personal health records is also in development with an anticipated July 2009 launch date. The Commission committed to expand certification in 2010 to behavioral health and long-term care, and it is seeking input on additional areas in which to expand certification in 2011 and beyond.

From Dec. 1 through 31, interested parties can download a form on CCHIT’s web site, cchit.org/expansion, to provide information on the benefits of expanding certification into a new area, the readiness of that area for certification, and an estimate of the effort required to develop certification in the area.  A Town Call to instruct interested organizations on how to submit these environmental scan forms will be conducted at 4 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 1. To participate, call 1 (866) 612-6319, password code 611877.  A presentation for the Town Call, and the ability to submit written questions before and during the call, will be available at ehrdecisions.com on that date.

A review of submissions and examination of the success potential will be compiled into a draft expansion roadmap for the CCHIT board of commissioners meeting on Jan. 13, 2009. After a public comment period, from Jan. 15 to Feb. 5, the expansion roadmap will be finalized on Feb. 17 and published soon afterward.

Work group convenes on stand-alone electronic prescribing

The Certification Commission has finished recruiting members for its work group charged with identifying criteria for stand-alone electronic prescribing systems by July 2009. Co-chairs of the group are Adrienne Cyrulik, Program Manager for eHealth Innovation with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; and David Kates, Vice President of Product Management with Prematics, Inc., a Vienna, Va.-based e-prescribing vendor. View a list of the entire 10-member work group at cchit.org/erx.

The Commission announced on Sept. 25 its intention to certify stand-alone e-prescribing systems to facilitate the ability of physicians and other medication prescribers to qualify for a new bonus offered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) beginning in 2009. CCHIT Certified® Ambulatory 08 EHR products contain the advanced e-prescribing capabilities called for in the CMS incentive, which initially will pay physicians a 2% bonus based on their total Medicare reimbursement for professional services. The work group will isolate a subset of the ambulatory certification criteria to apply to stand-alone e-prescribing systems, offering physicians a “starter set” that enables them to meet the bonus requirements while positioning them to expand the e-prescribing system into a full-fledged certified ambulatory EHR.

About CCHIT

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT®) is an independent, nonprofit organization that has been recognized by the federal government as an official certification body for electronic health record products. Its mission is to accelerate the adoption of health information technology by creating a credible, sustainable product certification program. The certification requirements are based on widely accepted industry standards and involve the work of hundreds of expert volunteers and input from a variety of stakeholders throughout the health care industry. More information on CCHIT and CCHIT Certified® products is available at www.cchit.org.