CCHIT readying Health Information Exchange certification

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology will pilot test a certification program for health information exchanges.

CCHIT is a veteran certifier of electronic health records software that meet certain best practice measures; it also is one of a handful of federally-deemed companies that certify EHRs for supporting meaningful use criteria. The new voluntary HIE certification program has three components:

• HIE Certified Community, a program for EHRs and other health I.T. systems that support statewide patient data inquiry;
• HIE Certified Direct, for software that enables secure messaging via the Internet using the federally-developed Direct Project protocols, and
• HIE Certified Network, for HIE-to-HIE connectivity and connecting to the nationwide health information network, and

“Certification will be specific to each technology and its version, and include testing of commercially available products, healthcare provider participants and health information exchanges,” according to CCHIT. The organization announced the HIE certification programs at HIMSS13.