The Time Is NOW for EHR Pediatric Certification 

Timothy Bennett, Director of Strategic Healthcare Initiatives, and Yoko Nakagawa, Business Development and Program Manager, have worked together at Drummond Group to help bring much-needed change and improvement to Pediatric Electronic Health Records (EHRs). In a recent LinkedIn Live, they were joined by Pele Yu, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer from Arkansas Children’s Hospital to share what inspired them to begin the journey towards making pediatric EHR certification a reality.

Tim and Pele recognized they shared a goal to ensure well-functioning EHRs better serve children’s health. Over the past two decades, the Pediatric community has advocated for EHRs to have pediatric-specific functionalities as children have different physiologies and may require different treatments than adults. EHRs used for adult care do not fully support children’s healthcare needs. Subsequently, the team at Drummond identified a meaningful and vital opportunity to deliver a program (Pediatric Health IT Certification Program) designed to improve EHR function for children.

The 21st Century Cures Act Interoperability Final Rule included ten (10) recommendations for voluntary certification of pediatric EHRs. The Drummond team believed the ten (10) recommendations for pediatric functionality addressed the tip of the iceberg and did not go far enough to provide clinicians with the pediatric health IT capabilities they need to improve child health outcomes.

The ten (10) voluntary recommendations outlined by the Cures Action Final Rule include:

• Use biometric-specific norms for growth curves and support growth charts for children
• Compute weight-based drug dosage
• Ability to document all guardians and caregivers
• Segmented access to information
• Synchronize immunization histories with registries
• Age- and weight-specific single-dose range checking
• Transferrable access authority
• Associate maternal health information and demographics with newborn
• Track incomplete preventative care opportunities
• Flag special health care needs

Drummond’s Pediatric Certification Program considered the ONC 10, as well as the 2015 Agency for Healthcare Research (AHRQ) Children’s EHR Format 2015 Priority List, to form the program and to determine what requirements to test. The next layer of the program development required Drummond to differentiate between Inpatient Pediatrics and Ambulatory Pediatrics, which resulted in two different tracks for the certification program. Drummond refers to these as the Baseline Tracks, which have a pass/fail basis. Then, there are the Advanced Achievements which are graded on the number of requirements supported to arm solution providers with market differentiation for robust pediatric functionality beyond Drummond’s baseline requirements. It should be noted that Drummond’s Pediatric Health IT Certification Program includes ONC program certification prerequisites. More information can be found here.

In parallel to the development of the Pediatric Certification Program, Pele as co-chair of the Health Level 7 (HL7) EHR workgroup led efforts to update the HL7 Pediatric Care Health IT Functional Profile (PCHIT FP). The scope of the project included reviewing the requirements from the Drummond Pediatric Health IT Certification program.

So, why should EHR vendors voluntarily obtain Drummond Pediatric Program certification? First and foremost, to improve child health outcomes by implementing these basic and advanced pediatric requirements. However, this program also provides a mechanism for EHR vendors whose products are being used in the pediatric space to highlight their offerings, showcase their implementations, and stand out amongst their competition.

The next step for the program is to continue to receive guidance and feedback from key stakeholders in the pediatric health space. Drummond put together a steering committee comprised of standards experts, clinicians, and vendor implementors to guide the future growth of the program. With the program in place, pediatric providers can be confident that their systems are meeting the highest standards for quality care.

The time is now to make sure pediatric EHR systems are certified for functionality that allows pediatric clinicians to provide care that better meets the needs of their youngest patients.