Weno Healthcare Inc. Applies for ONC-ATCB Status

Provided by Tina Goodman, CEO/President of Wenco Healthcare, Inc.

The healthcare technology race is on. The US Department of Health and Human Services recently announced the final rules for healthcare technologies to meet Stage I certification criteria. The release of the new rules came with more change. Authority was given the Office of the National Coordinator to authorize any and all entities that meet specific qualifications, to be temporarily authorized certification and testing bodies, or ONC-ATCBs. This news came as a relief to the technology industry which has a certain level of anxiety about their requirements for certification. Competition for the testing and certification service was badly needed.

These ONC-ATCBs will be the only approved resources technology vendors can go to for testing and certification for now. Weno Healthcare Inc. has submitted their application to become an ONC-ATCB in an effort to provide a cost effective solution and increase overall adoption for certified EHR technology.

Weno can provide a very low cost service with lower overhead and a strong motivation to promote the use of certified healthcare technology to all the provider members of their free healthcare e community. The very nature of the healthcare e community is to provide a free source of secure information exchange with other provider members. With providers using certified technology, an information exchange such as this is needed to achieve meaningful use; and therefore a valuable benefit to both technology vendors and providers seeking to take advantage of the government financial incentives. These incentives reward eligible professionals and hospitals for meeting meaningful use objectives when they use certified technology.

How does this relate to doctors and hospitals using healthcare technology? For awhile now, the government has announced financial incentives to certain hospitals and eligible professionals, i.e. physicians, if they can prove meaningful use of certified healthcare technology beginning as early as January 2011. Until recently, only one body was promoted to do this testing and certification. Because of no competition, their prices were out of the ballpark for smaller technology companies who may have built the better and cheaper mouse trap for doctors and hospitals, but could not afford the fees for certification. The technology companies that certified their products earlier are not considered certified by the new rules today, so all technology vendors must go through an ONC-ATCB in order to be re-tested and certified, if they choose to do so.

If Weno is approved as an ONC-ATCB, more technology vendors can afford the testing and certification fees. Weno savings can be as much as $19,000 for complete EHRs. These savings will certainly provide physicians and hospitals with more cost effective certified technology options to choose from. Again, competition is a good thing because it brings prices down and quality up.

Certification is certification, so why pay more? Everybody benefits from certified technology and I like that. Doctors and hospitals could qualify for incentives which will help offset the cost of the new technology, software vendors stay in business to help the economy and most importantly, patients are served more efficiently. Waiting for records can soon be a thing of the past.

Weno is currently accepting applications from technology vendors who would like a no obligation quote, on a first come first serve basis. To find out more contact Tina Goodman at tina@wenohealthcare.com or go to www.wenohealthcare.com and take the tour.