Certification may have to change to keep up with evolving meaningful use, CHIME says

As the criteria for meaningful use are likely to evolve over time, certification of EMRs will have to change, too, resulting in the need for ongoing certification, the College of Health Information Management Executives says. The new, temporary certification program, effective for at least the next year and a half, does not require vendors to re-certify their products after updates and fixes that don't adversely affect user compliance with meaningful use. But CHIME interprets the rule as allowing for CMS to toughen Stage 1 meaningful use criteria even before Stage 2 begins in 2013, and any such changes would necessitate tweaks to certification. Article