The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) has finalized the criteria for Cloud-Enabled Accreditation Program (CEAP) along with the accreditation achievements of three cloud-computing vendors: FIGmd; HealthcarePays Network; and MedicaSoft.

Developed by industry-peers, CEAP is offered exclusively for the users of FedRAMP-certified Cloud Service Providers (CPSs) regardless of the healthcare data exchange model the CSP supports, according to the organization. This program is available to organizations who are already accredited or have become candidates of at least one other EHNAC-accreditation program.

In response to the inherent privacy and security vulnerabilities of exchanging healthcare data across the cloud, EHNAC’s CEAP establishes a framework of trust between stakeholders and recognizes superior capabilities through the extensive review in the areas of privacy, security, mandated standards and key operational functions. CEAP assesses health information and oversight for meeting privacy and security, HIPAA, HITECH, Omnibus Rule and ACA requirements, as well as technical performance, business processes and resource management. The comprehensive CEAP program requires 74 unique criterions to be met by applying organizations, in addition to coordination with the organization’s CSP.

“Ensuring the privacy and security of data across public cloud service platforms is a complex challenge--especially in the evolving healthcare marketplace where we’re dealing with highly sensitive, protected health information,” said Lee Barrett, executive director of EHNAC. “The development of this program was driven heavily by our three beta organizations who were eager to establish the means for an independent third-party review. Because each have already gone through the accreditation process before for other programs, they had clear expectations of the process, and an understanding that accreditation could help them demonstrate a higher standard of quality and security.”

As beta participants throughout the consultative and consensus-driven process of program development, FIGmd; HealthcarePays Network; and MedicaSoft were the first to undergo evaluation on their compliance with the criteria and receive full accreditation status for the two-year timeframe.