Over the summer, our Chief Information Officer, Rick Moore, posted “Measure Up: Holding Ourselves to a Higher Standard.” In the blog, he detailed our ambitious and innovative plan for performance measurement built on the foundation of our NCQA eMeasure testing program. He explained that our experience with measurement coupled with our rigorous testing program sets us up to succeed as an Authorized Testing Laboratory (ATL), as determined by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). As an ATL, the NCQA eMeasure testing program would be an equivalent process methodology to the ONC-approved Project Cypress tool. NCQA would serve as another option for measure developers to use to test their systems.
In order to become an ONC-approved ATL, there are a few steps we had to take. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’re one step closer to reaching our goal.
That is: The National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) accredited NCQA‘s eMeasure Certification program. NVLAP is a third-party accreditor that tests health information technology systems. NVLAP Accreditation means that NCQA’s eMeasure testing program is now an approved laboratory to perform health IT tests as part of the ONC Health IT Certification program.
NVLAP accreditation is required before an entity can become an ATL.
We are very proud to announce this accreditation as we continue to solidify our program’s place in the future of performance measurement. By verifying our systems, we ensure that health information technology systems are more reliable and less burdensome for practices and providers.
As we continue the process to become an ATL, we’ll keep you updated along the way.
