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Federal officials should refer to current and planned work of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology while developing a definition for meaningful use of electronic health records, the American Health Information Management Association recommends.

The trade group for health information management professionals has sent to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology a comment letter on the initial proposed definition of meaningful use from a work group of the HIT Policy Committee.

In setting requirements for the use of CPOE, AHIMA recommends "referencing the CCHIT certification criteria for physician order entry that may assist in providing a clearer definition of CPOE regarding the expectations of their use within the inpatient and outpatient settings," according to the letter.

The association also recommends referencing the final CCHIT inpatient certification criteria, when complete, for 2009 and 2010. "This criterion will help guide the expected functionality for providers and their use of problem lists.

AHIMA further notes that a requirement to provide clinical summaries for patients for each encounter may need to be pushed from 2011 to 2013. Further, the group recommends that the Health Level Seven Continuity of Care Document serve as the patient summary.

The complete comment letter is available at ahima.org/dc/documents/AHIMACommentsonONCMeaningfulUseDraftDefinition.pdf.

--Joseph Goedert