CRHC, a Colorado Regional Extension Center (CO-REC) partner, is pleased to announce the unveiling of CO-REC’s first approved EHR vendor list. Colorado clinics confused about which electronic health record (EHR) system to buy can turn to their specific REC provider and CO-REC, which announced today its first list of 14 approved EHR integration products. CO-REC’s selected vendors have ONC-ATCB certified EHR products that met a series of rigorous technical and cost criteria.

CO-REC and CORHIO developed this list to help providers as they sort through the frustrating process of vendor and product selection. CO-REC’s selected products provide everything a provider needs to meet current meaningful use criteria as well as to be well positioned for future, more advanced criteria. CRHC will be working directly with CORHIO to develop a similarly vetted list of vendors for small rural and Critical Access Hospital EHR systems.

The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is certifying health information technology providers and these providers must meet certain standards. CO-REC and CORHIO incorporated those federal standards and went beyond them to develop requirements specifically focused on Colorado providers’ needs.

CO-REC began by identifying optimal requirements for an EHR, such as being able to integrate lab and hospital data as well as connect to the CORHIO and Quality Health Network Health Information Exchanges. Next, each vendor completed a comprehensive 14-page application requiring detailed information on technical functionality requirements. CO-REC and CORHIO staff then followed up with multiple one-on-one vendor interviews to further clarify system functionality. Finally, vendors agreed to offer reasonable prices for integration services. With its approved vendors, CO-REC has negotiated reasonable fees for this service, and those prices are available to all Colorado physicians.

Because EHR technology is improving rapidly, and the certification process is ongoing, CRHC as a partner in CO-REC will continue to work on the team to re-evaluate this list of current vendors periodically to ensure they are meeting the necessary requirements and will add new vendors from time to time as needed.

For more information on the CO-REC List of Approved EHR products along with a list of approved technology and business services vendors, please visit CORHIO’s website .