CCHIT certifies first EHR products for hospitals

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has announced that six EHR products, designed for use in acute care hospitals, have been given CCHIT certified status after undergoing inspections that demonstrated 100 percent compliance with the commission’s published criteria.

“Digitizing healthcare is important, but unless it is done in a way that ensures critical health information is available to patients and their providers when and where it is needed, we will fall short of the promise that health IT holds,” according to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

“By certifying both office-based, and now inpatient EHR products, CCHIT is helping to ensure that EHR products can offer clinical management support, and can exchange information seamlessly and securely so they can be used to improve the quality and safety of healthcare for consumers,” Leavitt added.

The certified products were also examined for clinician order entry and medication administration capabilities including related clinical decision support. The commission focused certification testing on these areas first since they have the lowest rate of adoption in hospitals but offer the highest value for improvement of care, according to Alisa Ray, executive director of the commission.

The four hospital EHR products that are fully CCHIT certified are:
  • CPSI System 15 from Computer Programs and Systems;
  • Sunrise Acute Care 4.5 SP4 from Eclipsys;
  • EpicCare Inpatient Spring 2007 from Epic Systems; and
  • Healthcare Management Systems 7.0 from Healthcare Management Systems.
Two additional products are pre-market, conditionally CCHIT certified. Pre-market, conditionally certified EHRs are new products that are fully certified once their operational use in a hospital site has been verified. They are:
  • ChartAccess 1.0 from Prognosis Health Information Systems; and
  • Soarian Clinicals 2.0C5 with Siemens Med Administration Check 24.0 from Siemens Medical Solutions.

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