On the heels of the EHR 2015 Criteria final rule, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced the upcoming release of several documents geared to "help jumpstart health IT development efforts," wrote Steven Posnack, director of ONC’s Office of Standards and Technology in a blog post.

The 2015 Edition final rule seeks greater interoperability for clinical health information purposes through new and enhanced certification criteria, standards and implementation specifications, so ONC will be releasing two types of supporting documents.

Certification Companion Guides (CCGs) "are designed help health IT developers more quickly understand and interpret our regulatory requirements so that they can focus on product development,” Posnack wrote. “Going forward, there will be a CCG for each certification criterion that distills in one place each criterion’s regulatory history, requirements and any subsequent clarifications. The CCGs will be updated on an as-needed basis.”

The final rule includes provisions for more rigorous testing of health IT exchange capabilities so the second set of documents will include draft 2015 Edition Test Procedures for each certification criterion, published for stakeholder feedback and a 30-day comment period.

“We intend to publish Test Procedures for comment at the same time as their associated CCG is published,” Posnack wrote. “Additionally, over the next few weeks our colleagues at NIST will begin to make available ‘alpha’ versions of 2015 Edition testing tools for early feedback and pilot testing. Earlier availability of test tools was another request we have done our best to respond to for the 2015 Edition. Last but not least, we’ll be engaged with our authorized certification bodies, testing labs, and their respective accreditors to conduct training sessions on new regulatory requirements.”