The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is seeking comments on revisions to health information technology certification regulations for 2015. CMS is updating these criteria more frequently to provide more incremental regulatory changes, give stakeholders earlier information and greater opportunity for input, and respond more quickly to newer industry standards to enhance interoperability. ONC observes that its previous two to three-year regulatory cycle was “sub-optimal” because it “created cycles of significant peaks and valleys from a health IT development standpoint; resulted in missed opportunities to improve interoperability and programmatic alignment because of mismatched regulatory and standards balloting cycle timelines; and adversely affected EHR technology developers’ ability to strategically plan their development and product rollout processes due to uncertain regulatory timelines.” The proposed rule provides that the 2015 Edition EHR certification criteria would be voluntary; providers would not need to adopt this edition, and no EHR technology developer who has certified its EHR technology to the 2014 Edition would need to recertify to the 2015 Edition for users to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. The proposed rule also includes revisions to the ONC HIT Certification Program intended to improve regulatory clarity, simplify certification of EHR Modules not used for achieving meaningful use; and discontinue the use of the “Complete EHR” certification concept. ONC will accept comments on proposed rule until April 28, 2014.