Outsourced Services Accreditation Program for vendors is available from EHNAC

Sep 22 2009

The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a non-profit standards development organization and accrediting body, announced the availability of its Outsourced Services Accreditation Program (OSAP). OSAP was designed for vendors who perform outsourcing functions – from product development and customer service to network administration and data center support – necessary to the business of other healthcare organizations.

OSAP assesses an organization’s electronic exchange of transactions and messages in areas such as privacy and confidentiality measures, level-of-service and escalation procedures, technical performance and transaction response times, and systems availability. It also assesses security infrastructure and data integrity measures including disaster recovery, business continuity, contingency plans, and intrusion detection and response. Once an organization is OSAP accredited by EHNAC, other EHNAC candidates who use that outsourcer will not have to pay for additional site visits to that organization.

“Outsourcing of various services has become a large and growing need for healthcare companies that seek to create operational efficiencies, supplement their infrastructure and reduce costs. OSAP provides outsource service organizations a third-party review of their services, allowing them to confidently demonstrate their ability to meet healthcare requirements while ensuring trust and confidence,” says Lee Barrett, executive director of EHNAC. “At the same time, it streamlines and facilitates the accreditation process for organizations currently in other EHNAC accreditation programs, yet are looking to outsource one or more of their critical functions.”

Outsourced Services Accreditation Programs include:

1. OSAP Administrator for network and system administrators

2. OSAP Backup Storage for backup media storage facilities

3. OSAP Customer Service for customer service/help desk operations

4. OSAP Data Host for data center hosting facilities

5. OSAP Disaster Recovery for disaster recovery facilities

6. OSAP Printing for printing operations

7. OSAP Product Development for product development operations

8. OSAP Scanning for scanning operations

In the process of a thorough, objective OSAP evaluation, organizations in the program will discover ways to improve efficiency, elevate quality of service, and keep up-to-date with current marketplace trends. As with all of its accreditation programs, EHNAC works with a broad range of stakeholders to develop rigorous and appropriate evaluation criteria. EHNAC’s mission requires an open, transparent process, and the commission encourages all interested parties to participate.

Source: The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission