KBCore “Purple Button” Evaluation System Helps Meet ACA Reporting Requirements

As states continue to build health insurance exchanges (HIXs) for use by the Jan. 1, 2014, deadline set forth in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there is another aspect of the ACA that has received little attention – the requirement that by Jan. 1, 2015, HIXs cannot contract with a hospital of 50 beds or more unless that hospital has a patient safety evaluation system and reports data to a patient safety organization (PSO).

While 2015 may seem far away, the timeframe to enact patient safety reporting measures is much shorter than many healthcare organizations realize.  Most health plan contracts, including those in the HIXs, are for terms of a year or more, which means that contracts taking effect on Jan. 1, 2014 must comply with 2015 requirements.  Time is critical for healthcare organizations to incorporate a secure means of capturing and reporting patient safety events and meet the requirements of the ACA.

One technology provider, KBCore, has developed an award-winning “Purple Button” solution that enables healthcare providers to visualize data through aggregatable, predefined reports that enable decision-making in seconds rather than the hours or days of traditional manual methods. KBCore recently won first place in the Office of the National Coordinator’s (ONC’s) “Purple Button” Patient Safety Reporting System Challenge 2.0 for its platform-agnostic medical event reporting system. For the Jan. 1, 2014 deadline, KBCore’s platform provides a vital tool for PSOs, hospitals, HIXs and other organizations seeking to comply with Federal recommendations about patient safety reports.

With the help of purple button technology, hospitals and healthcare organizations have a secure method of generating and analyzing patient safety event reports – today. The purple button enables clinicians to record and submit patient safety events or unsafe conditions via the Direct Project secure messaging. The KBCore “Purple Button” simplifies the process for healthcare providers to send patient safety information from existing databases, which are already in place in many healthcare organizations. The solution uses either NwHIN Direct Project or an HL7 interface to extract relevant data from electronic health records (as a CCD document) and automatically populate the common formats forms. The KBCore LAM (linguistics analytical module) then searches the institutional databases and a medication database to populate common formats detail reports.

By removing inefficient paper forms, KBCore integrates an easy-to-use Web-based electronic recording system with diagnostic capabilities to help caregivers analyze all contributing factors in any medical outcome and recognize best practice interventions. The Patient Safety Officer receives the relevant information in the AHRQ Common Formats for analysis and quality improvement.