News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Hunter Kome
Premier Inc.
704.733.5698

Premier launches “Service Line Solutions” comprehensive service line-specific physician preference consulting

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (March 17, 2006) – Premier, Inc. has taken physician preference consulting to a new level by enhancing its solution set designed to improve overall performance, including financial margin, operating efficiencies, clinical outcomes, and physician engagement strategies.

Premier’s “Service Line Solutions” leverages Premier’s vast repositories of hospital performance data on supply chain utilization, labor and staffing, and quality and safety, to address all aspects of performance in physician preference areas such as cardiovascular, orthopedics and spine.

Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis, Minn., recently engaged Premier to evaluate the cardiology service line at Fairview Southdale Hospital. “The Premier analysis has helped us take a successful program to a whole new level. Premier identified opportunities we did not know we had, and provided a blueprint for improvement that both hospital and physician leaders within our program have embraced,” noted Susan Mullaney, Vice President, Cardiac, Radiology & Imaging Services.

“We’re impacting service lines from a ‘total performance’ viewpoint,” describes Susan DeVore, President of Premier Purchasing Partners. “Our solution drives improvement in every area – implant pricing and utilization, labor efficiencies, care management and length of stay, revenue management, and physician engagement. We’re looking at every point in the process, from scheduling to post-discharge care, because our data shows that hospitals who manage their key service lines in this manner are successful in collaborating with their medical staff. That performance-based collaboration is the key to improving all aspects of performance, including reducing implant costs.” Comparative performance data provides the foundation of the Service Line Solutions program. Premier’s Clinical Advisor products, powered by the Perspective™ database, houses more than 3 billion patient records, making it the hospital industry’s largest and most comprehensive performance database. This information is consolidated with implant pricing and utilization data contained in Premier’s CardiacFocus, OrthoFocus and SpineFocus programs. “By linking data on expensive implants and other supply utilization with the billing and outcomes data in Perspective, hospital leaders get the information they need for partnering with their medical staff to improve performance,” explains John Johnston, Premier region vice president and program manager for Service Line Solutions. “Our program can quickly determine the changes necessary to maximize operating margin and improve patient outcomes. Our hospitals are able to make a significant impact on their service line margins as a result of this focused program.”

For more information on Service Line Solutions, please call the Premier Solution Center at 877.777.1552, e-mail SLS_info@premierinc.com or go to the Premier’s web site, https://premierinc.com/servicelinesolutions.

About Premier, Inc.
Premier, Inc., the leader in helping hospitals accelerate performance on both clinical outcomes and supply chain costs, is a healthcare alliance entirely owned by more than 200 of the nation’s leading not-for-profit hospital and healthcare systems. These organizations operate or are affiliated with nearly 1,500 hospitals and thousands of other healthcare sites. Premier Purchasing Partners provides an array of services supporting health services delivery including group purchasing totaling more than $25 billion annually in supplies and equipment purchasing, as well as supply chain and clinical performance improvement services. Premier Healthcare Informatics offers performance measurement, benchmarking, and reporting products and advisory services supporting quality improvement. Premier Insurance Management Services helps hospitals manage insurance costs and improve risk management and claims capabilities. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.

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