Mediformatica - The Medical Informatics Portal

In April 2004, and every year since, President George W. Bush has called for widespread use of health information technology (HIT), and for electronic health records (EHRs) to be in use for most Americans by 2014.
Since 2004, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) and the American Health Information Community (AHIC) were established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with the goal of improving healthcare through information technology.
One of the key actions indicated by ONCHIT to move the nation toward the President's goal was the private sector certification of health information technology products.

To that end, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT^SM) was created.

Three leading HIT industry associations – the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and The National Alliance for Health Information Technology (Alliance) – joined forces in July 2004 to launch CCHIT as a voluntary, private-sector organization to certify HIT products. The three committed resources to support CCHIT during its organizational phase.
In September 2005, HHS awarded CCHIT a three-year contract to develop and evaluate certification criteria and create an inspection process for HIT in three areas:

• Ambulatory EHRs for the office-based physician or provider
• Inpatient EHRs for hospitals and health systems
• The Network components through which they interoperate and share information

Mission
CCHIT's mission is:
To accelerate the adoption of health information technology by creating an efficient, credible and sustainable product certification program.

Goals
The goals of CCHIT product certification are to:

• Reduce the risk of HIT investment by physicians and other providers
• Ensure interoperability (compatibility) of HIT products
• Assure payers and purchasers providing incentives for EHR adoption that the ROI will be improved quality
• Protect the privacy of patients' personal health information

The Present
CCHIT has focused its first efforts on ambulatory EHR products for the office-based physician and provider. The first EHR products certified by CCHIT have been announced.

The Future
CCHIT is beginning the process of certification for inpatient EHR products and expects to have certified products available in 2007. Work products from this effort can be found in the Inpatient Criteria section.  
CCHIT works in a dynamic environment, collaborating with HHS and AHIC. Some standards are just gaining consensus while standards for interoperability are at an earlier state of development.
CCHIT criteria will undoubtedly evolve along with the standards from year to year and we will continue to provide guidance and leadership to the industry as this occurs. We will develop a forward-looking roadmap, offer standards-development organizations a timeline to work against, and provide vendors a guide for their development plans.