Secrets to Outstanding Success in the Health Care IT Industry

If you are in the medical and health care provider industry, there are certain vital steps to follow to stay competitive. Perhaps, the easiest and most effective ways of achieving outstanding success in the industry is to follow best practices and get CCHIT certified. So what exactly is CCHIT? CCHIT stands for Certification Commission for Health Information Technology and is an Authorized Certification Body (ACB) by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). It defines appropriate certification criteria as mandated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Why is it so important for health care organizations?

One of the prime benefits of being CCHIT compliant and obtaining the certifications is that organizations that are certified to be using EHR (Electronic Health Record) Technology become eligible for incentive funding as per the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Receiving this kind of exposure can be a  major advantage  for health care organizations that are committed to providing excellent quality of services and innovations to their customers.

So how does one become CCHIT compliant? There are two certifications that one can choose from. The first is the ONC HIT Certification – 2011 and 2014 Editions, which is applicable for developers of commercial health care technology products as well as for healthcare organizations that use multiple commercial products and in house information technology systems to achieve their goals. The other certification is the CCHIT Certified® 2011. This includes rigorous testing and inspection as per the defined criteria of inter-operability, security, usability and integrated EHR capabilities.

When the discussion is around EHR, the datacenter procedures and compliance comes into the picture by default. Most organizations will have contracts and agreements related to compliance signed with their third party hosting organizations so as to get certified holistically.

An inspiring example of an organization that has made the compliance possible is the the  Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC) Quality Data Center 2.0, it has been certified as a modular EHR by the ONC and has cleared criteria related to access control, automatic log-off, integrity, general encryption, audit logging, encryption at the time of electronic health information exchange and authentication. Whether you are a products based organization or a health care service provider, it is clear that the CCHIT is one area that you just cannot ignore. If you are considering outsourcing your data center capabilities to an organization that will aid your certification process, do consult https://lifelinedatacenters.com to make the right choice for your needs.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.