Health Monitoring Systems Receives ONC-ACB Certification By Drummond Group

PITTSBURGH - Sept. 22, 2014 - PRLog -- September 22, 2014—Health Monitoring System’s EpiCenter Router 3.0 has been tested and certified under the Drummond Group's Electronic Health Records Office of the National Coordinator Authorized Certification Body (ONC-ACB) program. This EHR modular software* is compliant in accordance with the criteria adopted by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The certification designates that the software is capable of supporting healthcare providers with Meaningful Use measures required to qualify for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“Since we design software for population health surveillance, EHR certification isn't something we had originally planned on. But after receiving questions from a number of healthcare providers, we listened to their needs and wanted to provide an alternative,” says Health Monitoring Systems CEO Kevin Hutchison. “EpiCenter has long been the most widely used syndromic surveillance system in the country. Receiving this certification means we’ll be even better at bringing hospitals and public health together so that they can better protect the health of the communities they serve.”

EpiCenter Router is a core component of the platform, accepting Syndromic data in a wide array of formats and transforming it into the Meaningful Use mandated HL7 2.5.1 format. EpiCenter is one of only a few electronic surveillance vendors to achieve certification for syndromic surveillance, one of three public health menu set objectives for hospital providers participating in Meaningful Use. Hospitals must show that they have met one of those objectives in order to be eligible for incentive payments under the ARRA. The syndromic surveillance objective certifies the capability to provide electronic surveillance data to public health agencies.

EpiCenter, which met the requirements for EHRs, provides public health with a leap forward in electronic monitoring of community health. It automatically collects, manages, and analyzes health-related data to help public health professionals detect and respond more effectively to changing health conditions.