November 6, 2007 - The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology said Nov. 5 that six electronic health record (EHR) products designed for use in acute care hospitals, representing an estimated 25 percent of the inpatient vendor marketplace, applied for and achieved CCHIT certified status after undergoing inspections that demonstrated their compliance with 100 percent of the Certification Commission’s published criteria.
“We are pleased that a quarter of the companies selling inpatient EHRs now have a certified product,” said Alisa Ray, executive director of the Commission. “In comparison, our EHR certification program for physician office-based products, which has been very successful, certified about 10 percent of the estimated market for EHR ambulatory products during the first round of inspections in 2006. We are off to a great start with certification of EHR products for hospitals.”
“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,” said 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.”
In addition to meeting underlying criteria such as security, the certified products were examined for clinician order entry (often called CPOE for Computerized Physician Order Entry) and medication administration capabilities (often called eMAR for Electronic Medication Administration Record), including related clinical decision support. The commission focused certification testing on these areas first because they have the lowest rate of adoption in hospitals, but have been shown to offer the highest value for improvement of care.
“The thorough inspection process ensures that certified products have demonstrated their ability to have a positive impact on patient care,” said Certification Commission Chair Dr. Mark Leavitt. “I’d like to congratulate these six companies that now represent the leading edge in advanced EHR products for the inpatient setting.”
The inpatient EHR certification program was launched in August.
The commission contracted with HIMSS Analytics to conduct a survey of senior health IT decision-makers at hospitals in March 2007. The sample size was approximately 350 senior IT executives in hospitals and integrated delivery systems. The results indicated that more than 66 percent reported familiarity with the commission’s work, and 55 percent of those said certification would be a requirement in their purchase decisions.
The four hospital EHR products that are fully CCHIT certified are:
- CPSI System 15 made by Computer Programs and Systems Inc.
- Sunrise Acute Care 4.5 SP4, by Eclipsys Corporation
- EpicCare Inpatient, Spring 2007, by Epic Systems Corporation
- Healthcare Management Systems 7.0 by Healthcare Management Systems Inc.
Two additional products are premarket, conditionally CCHIT certified. Premarket, 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, by Prognosis Health Information Systems
- Soarian Clinicals 2.0C5 with Siemens Pharmacy and Medication Administration Check 24.0, by Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc.
For more information: www.cchit.org
May 06, 2024 
