Diana Manos

Since the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) in 2009, Congress has been ever-watchful of the progress being made on electronic health record adoption.

As of Oct. 12, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has verified 40 products, which have been certified by two Approved Testing and Certification Bodies (ATCB) for use under the Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record incentive program.

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has announced it will house the Network Coordinating Center for a newly established data-sharing collaborative organization, the Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Research Network.

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has announced it will house the Network Coordinating Center for a newly established data-sharing collaborative organization, the Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Research Network.

Alisa Ray, executive director of the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, said Friday that CCHIT doesn't foresee a backlog of any kind in accommodating testing for meaningful use certification.

Healthcare information technology can collect and help analyze the quality measures the U.S. must have to integrate care, says the chief of the largest healthcare payer in the country, who added that the status quo of fragmented patient health information and fragmented care is no longer acceptable.

The Health IT Policy Committee, a federal advisory group, has begun work on developing the meaningful use requirements for Stages 2 and 3 of the federal Medicare and Medicaid healthcare IT adoption incentive program.

Coming out of the dog days of summer, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is gathering steam to roll out the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs).

As I write this column in late August, Congress is on summer recess and Washington seems to be asleep in the hot afternoon sun. But appearances aren't what they seem. There is some exciting healthcare IT legislation brewing on Capitol Hill that just might make a spark come fall.

ONC will announce “soon” the names of the authorized testing and certification bodies, Carol Bean, ONC's division director for certification and testing at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) said during a phone conference on Aug. 18.