CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT issued a request for information seeking input on policy options to strengthen the testing and certification of electronic health records used for reporting quality measures, Health Data Management reports (Slabodkin, Health Data Management, 1/4).

RFI Details

According to Healthcare IT News, the agencies are seeking information about certification of EHRs used for the:

• Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting program;
• Meaningful use program;
• Physician Quality Reporting System; and
• Other federal reporting programs (Miliard, Healthcare IT News, 12/31/15).

Specifically, CMS and ONC are seeking industry feedback on:

• How often recertification should be required;
• The number of clinical quality measures certified health IT should have to certify to; and
• Testing of certified health IT modules (Leventhal, Healthcare Informatics, 12/30/15).

The RFI stated, "We understand that standards for electronically representing CQMs continue to evolve and believe [that] there may be value in retesting certified health IT modules periodically to ensure that CQMs are being accurately calculated and represented, and that they can be reported as required."

CMS and ONC are accepting public comment through Feb. 1 (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 12/31/15).