CCHIT Announces It Will No Longer Certify Electronic Health Records – The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) announced on January 29, 2014, that it will no longer certify electronic health records (EHRs) for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. CCHIT has stopped accepting applications from EHR vendors for new certifications, and will instead focus on certifying the 70 EHRs previously submitted.  CCHIT intends to complete that work by April or May.  More than half of all certified EHRs on the Office of National Coordinator for Health IT’s certified products list are certified by CCHIT, and those products will remain certified for purposes of the EHR Incentive Programs.  A copy of the CCHIT press release is available here.

Lawmakers Introduce Data Breach Legislation in Response to Holiday-Season Cyberattacks – On January 8, 2014, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and four other Senate Democrats introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2014.  One week later, Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced an additional piece of legislation – the Data Security Act of 2014.  These bills reflect an effort to set forth a national standard for addressing data breaches.  For a more detailed discussion of this issue, please see our recent Client Alert, available by clicking here.