Secure Exchange Solutions and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama Win KLAS Research K2 Peak Award for Innovation and Collaboration

Streamlined clinical exchange powers payer-provider collaboration to improve access
to patient information for primary care providers.

ROCKVILLE, MD, May 24, 2023, Secure Exchange Solutions (SES), a Centauri Health Solutions company, and a leader in cloud clinical data exchange, along with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama and Innova Primary Care, won the first K2 Peak Award for innovation in provider-payer collaboration from among other notable collaborations at the KLAS K2 Summit, held May 9-10 in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The KLAS K2 Summit showcased industry and KLAS Points of Light awardees representing innovative programs that reduce provider friction, facilitate trust, and create alignment between payers, providers, and their technology partners. SES and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama earned a KLAS Points of Light award, which highlighted the program to engage primary care physicians to deliver impactful results, including: 

• Real-time health event alerts at the point of care, reducing administrative burden.
• A 50% decrease in hospital readmissions, resulting in significant cost savings.
• Reduced emergency department (ED) visits, leading to a 46% decrease in provider costs.
• Substantially lowering actual ED costs per patient compared to expected ER costs.

With health event alerting from SES Notify, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama minimizes inefficiencies related to inpatient and ED admissions by improving communication with primary care providers. Primary care physicians play a critical role in managing patients through transitions in care; however, when care is provided outside of their office, they are frequently excluded from communications, leading to gaps in care and missed opportunities in transitioning the patient’s care when discharged from the hospital or ER.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama recognized their primary care provider community needed help obtaining timely patient information to improve healthcare outcomes. The Care Alerts program was launched in 2018 and has continued to expand. Care Alerts help providers keep track of their patient’s health, improve patient outcomes, and reduce repeated ER visits. These alerts improve patient visibility at the point of care and lead to better follow-up care and healthier outcomes.

“Congratulations to the first-ever winners of the K2 Peak Award for an inspiring payer provider collaboration,” said Adam Gale, CEO of KLAS. “Their example demonstrates that so much is possible when healthcare leaders and their vendors work together to improve healthcare outcomes and provide better care. We are proud to recognize their achievements and hope that others will be inspired to follow their lead.”  

The Care Alerts program also enables greater connectivity to local hospitals, representing approximately 73% of the short-term acute care hospital beds in Alabama. Clinician onboarding into the program is seamless through self-service enrollment. The ease and speed of enrollment accelerate provider access to information and results in patient data being delivered directly into the provider’s EHR workflow within 24 hours of enrollment. 

“Gaps in communication between healthcare facilities negatively impact patient outcomes and miss the mark on what our patient guests expect and deserve from their healthcare system,” said Dr. Brooke Uptagrafft, President of Innova Primary Care. “Our team at Innova appreciates the leadership of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama to provide this critical patient information in a timely manner so that we are able to promptly follow up with our patients and aid them in navigating the healthcare system.”

“As a champion of the program, I am extremely proud of the adoption and growth of the Care Alerts program. We now serve more than 30% of the region’s primary care providers statewide, and our unique provider education cultivates provider engagement and enthusiasm,” said Royce Bradley, Operations Manager Healthcare Networks, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama. “We continue to drive future program innovation and healthcare improvement for our members.”

“SES is honored to be recognized by our peers and to share the K2 Peak Award with our payer and provider partners,” said Michele Darnell, President, Secure Exchange Solutions. “Our collaboration acknowledges innovation in the market and demonstrates how implementing standards-based technologies and efficient provider communications help to reduce provider friction and improve engagement.”

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama has insured Alabamians for over 87 years. Blue Cross offers coverage plans to corporations, individuals and the senior market. For more information about Blue Cross, visit AlabamaBlue.com. Connect with us on Facebook, check out our videos on YouTube and follow us on Twitter for more up-to-date information.  

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

About KLAS
KLAS is a data-driven company on a mission to improve the world’s healthcare by enabling provider and payer voices to be heard and counted. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals, KLAS collects insights on software, services, and medical equipment to deliver reports, trending data, and statistical overviews. KLAS data is accurate, honest, and impartial. The research directly reflects the voice of healthcare professionals and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. Learn more at KLASresearch.com.

About Secure Exchange Solutions

Secure Exchange Solutions, a Centauri Health Solutions company, sets the standard for seamless, scalable, secure connectivity across organizational boundaries. As an industry-leading provider of interoperable, cloud-based clinical data exchange and AI/NLP-powered clinical data analysis and review technologies, Secure Exchange Solutions protects, streamlines, and delivers sensitive and critical health care information while ensuring compliance and improving efficiency and quality. Hospitals, health systems, physicians, health plans, and application partners rely on Secure Exchange Solutions for integrated secure communications that expand their reach. For more information, please visit .

Media Contact:
Patrick Hobson
Secure Exchange Solutions
[email protected]

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