Personal health record (PHR) certification should focus on privacy, security and interoperability, according to recommendations issued by the Chicago-based Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT)’s PHR Advisory Task Force.
The recommendations were unanimously approved by the Commission and will be used in the development of certification criteria, says the organization.
According to the Task Force, certification should accommodate a diversity of models and architectures for delivering personal health information to consumers and should be simple enough for consumers to understand. It also recommends that the PHR Work Group and the Commission’s Interoperability Work Group collaborate to develop criteria that will ensure that PHRs can send and receive data from as many potential sources as possible, such as ambulatory EHRs, hospital EHRs, payers, pharmacies and labs.
The PHR certification program is expected to launch in mid-2009. Information about the Advisory Task Force’s recommendations and its members can be found at http://cchit.org/phratf.
