HITECH Act

Introduced in 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act seeks to improve healthcare quality, safety and efficiency through the promotion of health information technology (HIT) and the electronic exchange of information. To this end, a set of standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria have been adopted to enhance the interoperability, functionality, utility and security of HIT.

One of the certification criteria of the HITECH Act which EHRs must meet is the capability to electronically record, retrieve and transmit immunization information to immunization registries in accordance with the HITECH Act standards while also conforming to applicable state-designated standard formats. HL7 versions 2.3.1 and 2.5.1 are the "content exchange standards" for EMRs to exchange data with immunization registries, and the CDC-maintained HL7 standard code set CVX - Vaccines Administered is the "vocabulary standard."

View the most current CVX - Vaccines Administered code set.