From the ONC Health IT Buzz Blog
By CAPT Alicia Morton, D.N.P., R.N.-B.C./ Director, Health IT Certification Program , and
Tricia Lee Wilkins, Pharm.D., Ph.D.
Improving and streamlining the testing and certification of health IT has long been a goal of ONC. To that end, on June 9th we published a notice in the Federal Register that reintroduced a flexibility included in the ONC Health IT Certification Program that allows the National Coordinator to consider test procedures, test tools, and test data developed by any person or entity for approved use.
The notice was published in response to health care industry stakeholder feedback telling us that certain testing efficiencies could be achieved if the Certification Program were to include the approval of industry-led testing and certification, such as the ePrescribing (eRX) network testing (and certification).
The announcement responds to that stakeholder input and should provide an opportunity for developers, health IT companies, or even private entities to submit test procedures, test tools, and test data to be considered for approved use as part of the ONC Health IT Certification Program.
If approved by the National Coordinator, these non-ONC directed tools would qualify as an additional pathway for meeting testing and certification requirements as an alternative to existing testing resources and could provide potential testing and certification efficiency gains. We are excited about the potential of leveraging community supplied tools because there is no limit to the number that can be submitted and we believe that having more testing flexibility will help the program maximize the efficiencies already created and operational-proven by health IT developers.
Anyone who is interested in submitting new test tools, procedures and associate data should review the Federal Register notice which includes more details about what should be submitted. If you are interested, please submit test procedures, test tools, or test data for evaluation to onc.certification@hhs.gov.
For more information about ONC’s Certification Program, requirements and testing methods please visit our webpage here.
This post was originally published on the Health IT Buzz and is syndicated here with permission.