Last week at the HIMSS10 Healthcare IT Conference in Atlanta, an announcement was made proposing the establishment of two certification programs for purposes of testing and certifying health information technology.

David Blumenthal, MD, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, made the announcement regarding the certification proposal. This is the last in a series of three rules mandated under the HITECH Act, part of last February's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that explain how providers and hospitals can qualify for bonuses for the use of certified healthcare IT.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), unveiled the rules on standards and meaningful use last December. According to the ONC, the rule will allow organizations to apply for temporary or permanent authorization to become certification bodies. The ONC is proposing the temporary certification to speed things up because of the looming deadline.

The proposed rule can be found online here.