Currently, the CCHIT has certified over 200 EHRs. In order to be certified the product must pass the CCHIT’s tests. The tests cover three main categories.

• First - they ensure the product is functional
• Second - they verify that the product is interoperable
• Third - they test the security of the product.

Volunteer work groups draft certification criteria and the criteria are updated every year. The CCHIT quickly responds to the changing needs of the marketplace, recently changes have been made to the different levels of certification. Why is the CCHIT certification important to a physician? Well, it is becoming essential to adopt an electronic health records system; the president himself is requesting that physicians go electronic. Plus, now it means additional financial rewards. That is because the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contains incentive payments to those healthcare providers that adopt certified EHRs. Still, it can be an enormous undertaking for a physician to switch to an electronic system.

The mere process of choosing the right pack can be nerve wracking. An electronic health records system is a huge investment of time and money. So, the CCHIT certification helps take some of the anxiety out of the decision. It doesn’t cost the physician anything extra to choose a certified product. The expense of the certification process is born by the vendor. Choosing a certified product also takes a lot of the guesswork out of buying an electronic health record system.

The certification guarantees that the product will perform once installed. Several companies have been certified by the CCHIT. Noteworthy Medical Systems Software received complete certification for their products NetPracticeEHR 7.0 and NetPracticeEHRweb 7.0 are pre-market conditionally CCHIT certified. In addition, Axolotl has received pre-market conditional certification for its Elysium 9 electronic health records.