ONC authorizes four to certify EHRs

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has authorized four organizations to certify EHRs under the Stage 2 Meaningful Use program, known as the 2014 Edition of Certification.

ONC in August 2012 “named” five organizations for what amounted to provisional Stage 2 certifiers after the firms had been vetted by and received accreditation from the American National Standards Institute as appropriate candidates. Next, the organizations had to have their testing programs accredited under criteria created by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.

Four of the organizations--all of whom are certifying veterans in Stage 1--have received testing accreditation and are the first certifying entities ONC has authorized for Stage 2. They are the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, Drummond Group, ICSA Labs and InfoGard Laboratories.

Orion Register, a newcomer ONC also named as a certification entity in August pending NIST testing, has dropped out.