The Certification & Adoption Workgroup also met on July 16th.  This Workgroup is charged with making recommendations related to the adoption of certified electronic health records that support meaningful use.  Key to the Workgroup’s presentation is its proposed definition of HHS Certification:

 HHS Certification means that a system is able to achieve government requirements for security, privacy, and interoperability, and that the system would enable the Meaningful Use results that the government expects. 

Importantly, the Workgroup notes that “HHS Certification is not intended to be viewed as a ‘seal of approval’ or an indication of the benefits of one system over another.”

The Workgroup issued the following recommendations, which are more further described in its presentation.

  1. Focus Certification on Meaningful Use;
  2. Leverage Certification process to improve progress on Security, Privacy, and Interoperability;
  3. Improve objectivity and transparency of the certification process;
  4. Expand Certification to include a range of software sources: Open source, self-developed, etc.;
  5. Develop a Short-Term Transition plan.

Click here to view the presentation by the Privacy & Security Workgroup.

Click here to view the presentation by the Clinical Operations Workgroup.