AUSTIN, TX – Officials at Drummond Group, Inc., announced on the company's blog that after a "thorough review" of the recent notice of proposed rule making, it will apply this year to become an Office of the National Coordinator-Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB).

In Nov. the Austin, Texas-based interoperability test lab said that it hoped to extend its testing program to electronic health records and planned to apply once the ONC released its requirements for certifying bodies for EHRs.

On the DGI blog company officials said, "Receiving the HHS requirements to become an authorized EHR testing and certification body was the missing piece in our decision to move forward. Now that we have that piece, we feel confident in announcing our intention to formally apply."

According to the company's blog, it found the recent notice of proposed rule making "sound, reasonable and a big step forward for formal testing and certification criteria to support health IT."

"The quality assurance measures required for Part 1 of the Application were to be expected and DGI is in compliance with both ISO/IEC Guide 65 (for certification bodies) and ISO/IEC Guide 17025 (for testing bodies). The proficiency expertise to be demonstrated in Part 2 of the Application is an obvious necessity, and we are confident that we will meet the requirements in this area," the blog read.

Drummond Group has a very strong track record with technology, said Glenn Laffel, MD, vice president, clinical affairs for San Francisco-based Practice Fusion, a provider of Web-based EHRs, in an interview with Healthcare IT News in November.

Because there approach is about outcomes and results, Laffel believes it is "more in line philosophically with what ONC has in mind."

"We have known that we are not in EHR testing for the short haul, but rather, the long term. We have been involved with certification and testing for industries of Retail, Energy, Automotive, and Financial for years. If you look at some of our current testing programs, (AS2 – 10 years, ebMS – 8 years, GDSN – 6 years, SAML – 4 years, CSOS – 6 years), we don't pursue test opportunities unless we are committed for the future. We are not conducting EHR testing just to take advantage of the CMS incentive money and then leave when it is gone. We believe the future of health IT is promising, there is plenty of work to be done and to be shared and Drummond Group wants to be a part of it," the blog read.