Drummond Group EHR Blog

We got several comments and offline emails regarding our first blog post. Thanks so much for reading. To the comment/ question of who will certify organizations such as DGI to be EHR testing organization, the answer is, we don’t know. We have reached out to ONC, but they did not answer this question. We are still in the dark.

In our EHR certification dialog with vendors with which we have spoken, the most common question we get is about pricing and specifically how much will you charge? As of now, our answer is: we don’t know. To elaborate more, we can’t know right now. Until HHS/ONC provides the definitive criteria for becoming an authorized EHR certification body and completely defines the process/test cases they expect EHR vendors to perform for certification, we can’t determine the man-power resources needed for the testing effort and, therefore, we can’t set pricing. As with any business endeavor, you must have your statement of work before you can accurately set your pricing.

We do have some best estimate or ball park numbers in mind. The Certification Criteria document certainly gives you a good basis for what a certification test event would encompass. Also, we know that unless the certification price is reasonable, small to mid-size vendors won’t be able to participate.  Finally, we have seen many good signs from ONC that they are very considerate of small to mid-size vendors as they worked through the new Meaningful Use and EHR Certification Criteria. Thus, we expect they will have a similar view for the certification testing process.

For those looking for a more definite answer on pricing, it would be a disservice to put forth a dollar amount without complete confidence in that number. So we work on our EHR test plans and tools and wait for final word.

Welcome to the Drummond Group Inc (DGI) EHR blog. 2010 is going to be a monumental year for EHR and the medical community. To help EHR vendors preparing for certification and other interested EHR parties, we have started this blog as a forum to provide regular updates from our perspective on EHR certification and to hear from you as well.

Let’s start with a quick update from our end. As you know, HHS has released Meaningful Use and Certification requirements. Like you, we have studied it and made ourselves familiar with the requirements. However, as an interested certification body, we are still awaiting the guidelines and policies for the HHS Certification Program and how an organization like DGI can become an authorized certification body for EHR vendors. Last month NIST awarded a contract to Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) to develop a testing process for EHR system certification (http://www.govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=72951). It appears BAH will be developing both the testing certification documents as well as the framework for authorizing certifying body for EHR certification.

Once that final piece of the puzzle is revealed, we can begin making more detailed plans for EHR certification. Until then, we believe attempting EHR certification is, at best, premature and, at worst, potentially a significant waste of time and money for ourselves, the certifying vendors and the adopting physicians and hospitals.

However, this waiting period does not mean we are idle. We will be making regular posts here on various EHR certification topics. Since many of you are not familiar with us, we will share a bit more about DGI and our qualifications to be an authorized HHS certifying body for EHR. We have a great deal of experience in system-to-system interoperability and are excited to bring that knowledge to the EHR community. Since we are getting so many emails from vendors interested in EHR certification, we will talk about some of the concerns we are hearing and thoughts on how to best address them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this first post. Keep coming back and checking us out. We are very excited about EHR and its future.