ANSI wins second term as ONC-approved accreditor

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has selected the non-profit American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for a second three-year term as the ONC-Approved Accreditor (ONC-AA) for the ONC Health Information Technology (HIT) Certification Program. 

ANSI won the position as accreditor after a competitive process that included an evaluation against a specific set of requirements, the ONC stated.

"ANSI is very pleased to have been chosen once again as the ONC-Approved Accreditor under the HIT Certification Program," said ANSI president and CEO S. Joe Bhatia in a press release. "This selection followed a rigorous, competitive evaluation process, and it speaks to the first-rate quality of the Institute's accreditation programs. This is one of many instances where government bodies have chosen to rely on ANSI accreditation to demonstrate value and assure competency for important national priorities."

The ONC-AA position is an influential one as it is tasked with certifying the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program Accredited Testing Laboratories, who in turn certify electronic health record (EHR) technology as meeting the government’s standards. ANSI is the body that makes sure the EHR certification bodies that seek to serve as ONC-Authorized Certification Bodies (ONC-ACBs) meet the requirements set forth in ISO/IEC Guide 65, General requirements for bodies operating product certification systems (New ISO/IEC 17065), which was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

"Accreditation by ANSI creates a valuable attribute for certification bodies," added Reinaldo Figueiredo, ANSI senior program director for product and process accreditation, in a press release. "This value extends through the service network and will help to instill confidence in EHR technology among health IT developers, health professionals and hospitals, and the general public."