Which organization was known for early EHR certification efforts before ONC established testing bodies?

• A. Drummond
• B. CDRH
• C. CCHIT
• D. FDA

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is recognizing who led early efforts to certify EHR systems before there were formal federal testing bodies. That role was filled by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, or CCHIT. CCHIT was created by stakeholders in healthcare IT to establish standardized certification criteria for EHR products and to run testing against those criteria. This private initiative helped standardize what an “certified” EHR meant at a time when no ONC-backed testing program existed yet. The federal testing framework eventually came later, after the ONC set up official testing bodies. The other options don’t fit because they’re tied to roles outside EHR certification: the FDA’s device-regulation focus isn’t about certifying software, and while organizations like Drummond Group later participated in ONC-related testing, they did not spearhead the pre-ONC certification efforts.