Continuum GRC Says HHS Health IT Rule Raises the Stakes for Buyer-Led AI Due Diligence

Changes reduce federal requirements for decision-support tools, making documented procurement, validation, monitoring choices important for health organizations

SCOTTSDALE, AZ, UNITED STATES, November 5, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Continuum GRC today advised health organizations and health IT buyers to reassess their technology due-diligence controls following the Department of Health and Human Services’ HTI-5 final rule. HHS says the rule streamlines the voluntary ONC Health IT Certification Program and projects more than $1.5 billion in regulatory cost savings.

The final rule removes or revises multiple certification criteria. For decision-support interventions, it removes specified requirements to support source-attribute information and intervention risk-management practices for predictive tools. The related changes generally take effect December 28, 2026, while selected certification changes take effect January 1, 2027. HHS also states that comments on proposed information-blocking changes remain under consideration, so those proposals were not resolved in HTI-5.

A narrower certification requirement does not answer every question a provider, board, compliance team, or clinical governance committee may have about a decision-support tool. Buyers may still need evidence about intended use, training and validation data, performance limits, bias testing, change management, human oversight, incident handling, and supplier responsibilities. The appropriate evidence will depend on the use case and applicable obligations, but it should be requested, reviewed, and retained through a repeatable process rather than handled as an informal procurement exchange.

Regulatory change management should translate the rule into specific control decisions before the effective dates. Organizations should identify affected certified modules, map removed or revised requirements to internal policies and contracts, decide which disclosures they will continue to require, and assign owners for validation and ongoing monitoring. The rule reduces particular federal certification obligations; it does not by itself establish that every underlying governance activity is unnecessary or remove other laws, contractual duties, clinical standards, or risk-management responsibilities that may apply.

“When a certification rule changes, the right response is a documented control decision. Health organizations should identify which vendor evidence is no longer required through certification, determine what they still need for their own risk and clinical governance, and preserve that reasoning alongside contracts, validation results, and monitoring records.” — Michael Peters, Founder and CEO, Continuum GRC

About Continuum GRC

Continuum GRC is the enterprise SaaS platform developed by Lazarus Alliance that automates and accelerates Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) programs. Built on the proprietary IT Audit Machine^® (ITAM) and A.ITAM frameworks, Continuum GRC is FedRAMP Authorized at the Moderate baseline and delivers continuous control monitoring, automated evidence collection, risk scoring, dashboards, and AI-powered assessment capabilities through AITAMBot. Organizations use Continuum GRC to streamline CMMC, FedRAMP, SOC 2, NIST, ISO, PCI DSS, CJIS, and other frameworks—reducing audit timelines, improving accuracy, and enabling faster authorization and certification outcomes.

Michael Peters
Continuum GRC, Inc.
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