The games surrounding certification in EHRs

A little while back, the Certification Committee for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) had its future in doubt because of some announcements about possible changes to its role. As with any program, there seems to be some issues surrounding the certification process and whether vendors may be “playing games”.

Houston Neal, of Software Advice, has an insightful piece on some of the issues surrounding certification of EHR/EMR software. I’m not sure that this is an issue in Canada at the moment, but there is talk about certifying systems here in Canada. If that ever becomes the case, then there would be similar issues to address here.

Certification is a seductive solution in trying to address quality. The problem is that once we establish a certification system, the debate shifts to the criteria and process of certification – whether is valid, fair, appropriate, who should certify…

I’m not sure what a suitable alternative should be (if any).


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One response to “The games surrounding certification in EHRs”

  1. Ken Stevens Avatar

    Ontario’s been certifying EMRs for many years now. One advantage of this has been standardizing the data format so customers can switch EMR vendors without loosing their data.