Quest Diagnostics announced that its Care360™ Electronic Health Record (EHR), Version 2010.1, has been inspected by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®) and is a certified EHR Module, IFR Stage 1, achieving all 14 of the requirements applied for of the 24 requirements for Eligible Providers published by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Interim Final Rule of January 2010.

The Care360 suite of services is developed by MedPlus, Quest Diagnostics’ health information technology subsidiary.

The preliminary program is designed to demonstrate that a vendor’s product is well prepared to be certified once Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) accredited testing and certification becomes available. Interim requirements were revised with the publication of the final rules on July 13, 2010. For the purpose of qualifying products for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) incentives, CCHIT anticipates but has not yet received accreditation by ONC/HHS. Inspection information is available online.

"Our Care360 EHR certification milestone is further recognition of Quest Diagnostics’ industry leadership in providing interoperable, secure and modular healthcare technology solutions," said Richard A. Mahoney, Quest Diagnostics’ vice president of Healthcare Information Solutions and president of its MedPlus healthcare information technology subsidiary. "It is but one demonstration of our unwavering commitment to empower the nation’s physicians with relevant, easy to use, affordable technologies that help them both improve patient care and qualify for government incentives."

The Care360 EHR product roadmap was aligned with most ONC criteria supporting the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Meaningful Use measures. As a result, MedPlus was able to begin preliminary certification activities early, and implemented a two-phase plan to achieve full ONC/HHS certification. Now that Phase 1 certification, which includes 14 of the 24 criteria, has been successfully achieved, the company is focused on Phase 2 certification and meeting the remaining 10 criteria requirements per the final July 13th 2010 published ruling, the least defined EHR requirements from ONC. MedPlus plans to apply for final certification when it becomes available.

More than 70,000 physician locations and 160,000 physicians across the nation rely on the Care360 suite of products to help improve patient care and increase practice efficiencies. For those physicians using Care360 Labs & Meds for online lab ordering/results and ePrescribing, the transition to Care360 EHR is simple, using the same web-based platform.

"Care360 EHR is an intuitive solution that allows me to incrementally adopt the features I need to streamline my practice. The ability to have Care360 EHR completely running within just a couple of weeks made the transition from paper records completely seamless," said Dr. Saif Bajwa, an Internal Medicine Physician of Lake Elsinore, CA. "As a result, Care360 EHR enables me to spend more time with my patients and less time reviewing paper charts and handwritten notes."

Source: Quest Diagnostics