EHR Association Announces EHR Developer Code of Conduct

The EHR Association, a collaboration of more than 40 EHR companies, recently announced the landmark EHR Developer Code of Conduct, developed by the association as a reflection of its members’ commitment to supporting safe health care delivery, fostering continued innovation, and operating with high integrity in the market for EHR users and their patients and families.

Michele (“Mickey”) McGlynn (Siemens), the association’s chair, says, “Representing the majority of operational EHRs in physicians’ practices and hospitals in the US today, we understand firsthand the transformative power of health IT, and we offer this Code of Conduct as a reflection of our industry’s ongoing commitment to collaborate as trusted partners with all stakeholders.”

The EHR Association’s Code of Conduct Workgroup began its efforts to develop the code early this year, and during that process, they engaged with a number of stakeholder organizations to gain insights from a variety of perspectives. “We reached out to the diverse set of people and organizations we work with routinely in developing and implementing EHRs,” McGlynn says. “We incorporated very useful input from provider groups, consumer organizations, commercial payers, and the government to ensure that the Code of Conduct reflects an open and balanced set of principles. We now offer the code, which will continue to evolve in coming years, to encourage transparency and collaboration among EHR developers, as well as between EHR developers, their customers, and other industry stakeholders.”

Michael Barr, senior vice president at the American College of Physicians (ACP), adds, "ACP is pleased with the effort by the EHR Association to address some important issues related to electronic health records and patient safety, interoperability, documentation, privacy and security, and patient engagement. The EHR Developer Code of Conduct establishes firm principles that are very responsive to the issues physicians and other health care professionals would like addressed as they try to select, implement, and optimize EHR solutions in practice. We look forward to collaborating with the EHR Association as these principles are implemented."

As the sponsor of the Code of Conduct, the association encourages all EHR developers to adopt the code, regardless of whether they are members of the association. Leigh Burchell (Allscripts), EHR Association vice chair adds, “We worked closely with our member companies during the process of gaining approval of the code across the association. Based on the feedback so far from those companies, we believe that there will be a very positive response among our membership to the code as an extension of their commitment to customers, prospects, employees, and partners.”

The EHR Association has made the code available on their website at
http://www.himssehra.org/ASP/codeofconduct.asp, along with frequently asked questions and implementation guidance. The association will periodically review the code to ensure that it reflects the rapidly evolving HIT industry.

Source: EHR Association