I recently got an email from an EHR vendor talking about how they just had a practice uninstall a CCHIT certified EHR and replace it with this EHR vendor’s EHR which was not CCHIT certified. This fact really wasn’t news to me and shouldn’t be news to anyone reading this forum. Although, if it is news to you, then know that this is a very common occurrence in the EHR world in general.
What was really interesting to me was to actually see an EHR vendor put a marketing and PR plan in action which basically says, “We’re not CCHIT certified and doctors like our EHR software better.” I mentioned to an EHR vendor I talked to recently that I think there’s a great opportunity available for some EHR vendor to say that we don’t waste our money on CCHIT certification. Instead our money is laser focused on making our EHR software improve your life as a doctor and your practice in general. Essentially, it seems like the EHR vendor is putting this into practice.
I should mention that the EHR vendor that sent me this email is one that focuses on a specific medical specialty specialties. CCHIT doesn’t do very good for specialties and so there’s even less benefit for a specialty specific EHR to waste development dollars on CCHIT.
You can actually find a blog post by the CEO of SRSsoft, Evan Steele, where he tells the story I’m talking about above. However, the interesting part isn’t the blog post itself. The interesting things are found in the comments of the blog post. In the comments Evan Steele says:
When reading the CCHIT criteria, it becomes clear that onerous requirements that do not impact the quality of care provided by orthopaedic practices (and are of questionable importance to other types of physicians) are layered onto the fundamental features that make an EMR valuable.
As you may know, I have been nominated as a member of the HIT Standards Committee, the group that will be charged with defining the EHR certification criteria. I have also volunteered to serve on a CCHIT work group. Although I anticipate an uphill battle, these are two opportunities for the voice of the 4,000 SRS physicians, as well as other high-performance physicians to be heard.
I don’t know Evan Steele personally, but he’s a brave man to join the HIT standards committee and a CCHIT work group. Thankfully he has a blog and hopefully we’ll hear more about the process of the HIT standards committee. In fact, I think he reads this blog and so I’d welcome him to do a guest post about his experience on the HIT standards committee [assuming his nomination is accepted].
[…] anywhere from 19% to 30% of all EMR systems are de-installed later. Getting something that was certified by CCHIT is no guarantee of […]
CCHIT is really good giving the seal of approval for the vendors. It may have certain negatives but it is the only thing maintaining the standards
You’re right that CCHIT has been good at giving people the feeling that they are improving their chances of implementing an EHR successfully. Too bad there’s no proof that this is the case. In fact, there’s some proof that the opposite might be the case such as the story above.
It also might be worth noting that the HIT Policy committee has suggested that the HHS establish it’s own certification criteria and not use CCHIT’s criteria. See more on that: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2009/07/18/onc-hit-policy-committee-meeting/