The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is accepting submissions of test procedures, test tools and test data for certification.

The agency published a notice last month in the Federal Register, according to a post on the ONC’s blog authored by CAPT Alicia Morton, DNP, RN-BC, director of the Health IT Certification Program and Tricia Lee Wilkins, PharmD, PhD.

“Improving and streamlining the testing and certification of health IT has long been a goal of ONC,” they wrote. The notice was published in response to healthcare 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), they said.

“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.”

Learn more information about ONC’s Certification Program, requirements and testing methods.