PHILADELPHIA – U.S. physician practices should become more familiar with the certification process for ambulatory electronic health records and give feedback to EHR vendors, a pair of healthcare IT experts said Monday.

“Adoption of an EHR is an ugly, ugly process,” said Robert Tennant, senior policy adviser for health informatics at the Medical Group Management Association. “Things are always more expensive and more difficult than vendors claim.”

Tennant spoke at a CCHIT Forum at the 2007 Annual Conference of the Medical Group Management Association. Mark Leavitt, MD, the chairman of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, joined him on the podium. Both speakers affirmed that certification was critical to ensuring that EHRs were designed adequately.

“Used improperly, an electronic health record system is a nightmare and is worse than paper,” Leavitt said. “An EHR system is never one-size fits all, in regard to either software or hardware. There are things that the largest physician practice needs in an EHR which are superfluous to solo practices.”

Much of the audience of physician practice management executives were unfamiliar with how CCHIT certification worked. That isn’t surprising considering the low rate of EHR adoption in U.S. physician practices. Leavitt gave an overview of the CCHIT certification process.

He explained that there are four ways certification can accelerate healthcare IT adoption. First, he said that certification could reduce the risks of physician investment in EHR products. Certification can also facilitate interoperability of EHR products within the emerging nationwide health information network.

Leavitt also claimed that the CCHIT certification process could enhance the availability of incentives for EHR adoption and promote the relief of regulatory barriers. Finally, he affirmed that certification could ensure that EHR products and networks always protect the privacy of personal health information

Leavitt said that CCHIT was currently working on the development of certification requirements for EHR products directed at the emergency department and cardiology. He also revealed that specialty-specific EHRs would get endorsements in addition to the standard CCHIT certification label.

Tennant discussed how CCHIT certification could help physician practice managers choose the right product for their medical offices.

“The first thing you should be looking for is the CCHIT seal,” Tennant said. “And you really should be looking at the 2007 criteria. The 2006 criteria was great, but one hundred more criteria were added for 2007.”

Tennant explained that the certification process is especially useful because it “pushes” vendors in a particular direction developmentally. Vendors are forced to re-engineer their software to make it better.

“If an EHR product isn’t certified, and there’s not an obvious reason why it’s not certified, you should pass on that product,” Tennant said.

The transparency of the certification process helps it get “buy-in” from all stakeholders, Tennant claimed.

“We all benefit when healthcare goes electronic,” Tennant said. “A lot of the quality will improve because of better handling of patients, but we’re not quite there yet. Certification is just the first of many steps.”