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Henry Bostic
Premier Inc.
704.733.5695

Premier releases new SpendAdvisor version with automatic contract tier qualification logic

Latest release of healthcare alliance’s spend analytics tool automates tier selection based on member’s historical volume and market share

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (November 2, 2007) – The newest version of the Premier alliance’s widely adopted SpendAdvisor spend analytics tool features innovative tier qualification logic that analyzes members’ purchasing volume, units, and market share from the past 12 months to automatically determine which tier a member will qualify for on a particular contract.

“The automated tier selection functionality is not only innovative but also a huge time saver over doing the same thing manually,” said Jeffrey Ashkenase, Vice President, Business Intelligence and Program Administration in group purchasing for the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA.

“Lisa Fishelberg, the project manager for GNYHA, studied the contracts individually and determined the appropriate tier. She then fed the same information into SpendAdvisor’s new Modify Tier Report function. SpendAdvisor was able to automatically identify the same tier opportunities. We were definitely impressed by the accuracy we found in beta testing,” Ashkenase said.

More than 70 IDNs are on-board and successfully using the tool to drive millions of dollars in savings. SpendAdvisor version 7.4 went live October 29.

“We continue to enhance and refresh SpendAdvisor by leveraging member feedback and extensive usability testing,” said Premier Group Vice President Marla Weigert. “Part of our advantage as an alliance is knowledge sharing. We continue to leverage the collective experience of our alliance users to deliver superior technology solutions. This release represents an exciting first step for us in advanced contract and tier modeling.”

“The new version of SpendAdvisor also helps members who use the spend analytics tool to target specific opportunities where they are very close to meeting new tier requirements that will bring them additional savings,” Weigert said.

Additional SpendAdvisor upgrades in the new release include enhanced functionality of the Market Analyzer function to support off-contract and non-contract conversion analysis, on-demand ability to change user preferences, and more robust data logic rules to enhance the data integrity.

About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Serving 1,700 hospitals and more than 48,500 other healthcare sites, Premier is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the nation's largest healthcare purchasing networks, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.