Seventeen electronic health-record software companies have adopted an industry trade association's code of good business practices and conduct, the group announced.
The four-page EHR Developer Code of Conduct was released last June by the Electronic Health Record Association, an affiliate of the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
Its 17 adoptees are Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, CPSI (Computer Programs and Systems), Epic Systems, Foothold Technology, GE Healthcare, Greenway Medical Technologies, MacPractice, MEDHOST, MEDITECH (Medical Information Technology), Modernizing Medicine, NextGen Healthcare, Practice Fusion, Siemens, SRSsoft, and Versasuite.
The code requires adhering developers to participate in one or more patient safety organizations and share best practices for the safe deployment and use of their products, promote interoperability between EHR systems, adopt national interoperability standards as well as work with customers to facilitate the export of data from their systems if a customer chooses to switch to another developer's EHR.
The code also requires participants to develop and implement their software and adopt business practices that protect patients' privacy and enables patient engagement. A copy of the code (PDF) and nine pages of questions and answers about it are available on the EHRA's website.
By adopting the code, organizations demonstrate leadership and their “ongoing commitment to collaborate as trusted partners with customers and the industry,” EHRA Chairwoman Mickey McGlynn, senior director of strategy and operations at Siemens Healthcare, said in a news release.
Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn
Send us a letter
Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
