To encourage a more widespread adoption of interoperable health information technology, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 calls for the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT, in consultation with NIST, to recognize a program for the voluntary certification of health information technology as being in compliance with defined meaningful use requirements.

The Health IT Test Methods guidance, provided by NIST, provides functional and conformance testing requirements, test cases, and test tools in support of the health IT certification program.