Quality and Certification of Electronic Health Records

A. Hoerbst; E. Ammenwerth

doi:10.4338/ACI-2010-02-R-0009

Applied Clinical Informatics, Table of Contents

Appl Clin Inform 2010; 01(02): 149-164
DOI: 10.4338/ACI-2010-02-R-0009

Review

Schattauer GmbH

Quality and Certification of Electronic Health Records

An overview of current approaches from the US and Europe

A. Hoerbst

¹Research Division eHealth and Telemedicine, UMIT – University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Eduard-Wallnoefer-Zentrum 1, Hall in Tirol, Austria

,

E. Ammenwerth

²Institute for Health Information Systems, UMIT – University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Eduard-Wallnoefer-Zentrum 1, Hall in Tirol, Austria

› Author Affiliations

Abstract

Summary

Background: Numerous projects, initiatives, and programs are dedicated to the development of Electronic Health Records (EHR) worldwide. Increasingly more of these plans have recently been brought from a scientific environment to real life applications. In this context, quality is a crucial factor with regard to the acceptance and utility of Electronic Health Records. However, the dissemination of the existing quality approaches is often rather limited.

Objectives: The present paper aims at the description and comparison of the current major quality certification approaches to EHRs.

Methods: A literature analysis was carried out in order to identify the relevant publications with regard to EHR quality certification. PubMed, ACM Digital Library, IEEExplore, CiteSeer, and Google (Scholar) were used to collect relevant sources. The documents that were obtained were analyzed using techniques of qualitative content analysis.

Results: The analysis discusses and compares the quality approaches of CCHIT, EuroRec, IHE, openEHR, and EN13606. These approaches differ with regard to their focus, support of service-oriented EHRs, process of (re-)certification and testing, number of systems certified and tested, supporting organizations, and regional relevance.

Discussion: The analyzed approaches show differences with regard to their structure and processes. System vendors can exploit these approaches in order to improve and certify their information systems. Health care organizations can use these approaches to support selection processes or to assess the quality of their own information systems.

Citation: Hoerbst A, Ammenwerth E. Quality and certification of electronic health records – An overview of current approaches from the US and Europe. Appl Clin Inf 2010; 1: 149–164 http://dx.doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2010-02-R-0009

Keywords

Quality - certification - electronic health record - medical records

Full Text

References

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