For eligible professionals to receive EMR meaningful use stimulus money, electronic health records (EHRs) must be certified per regulations put forth by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

Currently, ONC recognizes several Authorized Testing and Certification Bodies (ATCBs), and among these are CCHIT, Drummond Group and InfoGard, as eligible to test for and designate that EHRs are certified for meaningful use quality reporting. These ONC-ATCBs are the only organizations which can authorize that an EHR is certified for meaningful use incentive capture. In order for a solution to be recognized as a certified EHR, they must submit the product for testing to any of the three above certifying bodies, wherein among successful completion, will receive certification. A full list of ONC-ATCBs can be found on the HHS webpage.

The EMR meaningful use eligibility final rule established a temporary certification process that will transition into permanent certification status in 2012. That means that current ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification for meaningful use coincides with the Stage 1 meaningful use reporting criteria.

After that time period, increased reporting standards will commence as Stage 2 and then Stage 3 EMR meaningful use eligibility criteria, still backed by ongoing stimulus money funding. In terms of reporting criteria, the current Stage 1 requirements are divided into the aforementioned core and menu items. With the commencement of Stage 2, all Stage 1 menu items are projected to become core criteria, as new criteria is also added, and another round of certification keeps pace.

ONC plans to sunset temporary certification on December 31, 2011, to allow permanent certification (completely administered by private entities already designated by ONC as certification testing bodies) to take over the process without ONC oversight.

The Final Rule emphasizes that ONC plans to continue to work closely with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to formulate the tenets of ongoing reporting criteria and certification.