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CONTACT:
Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797

Premier healthcare alliance to present pre-conference session at third national pay-for-performance summit

Executives, client hospitals will discuss results of successful HQID project

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (February 20, 2008) — The Premier healthcare alliance will be well represented at the third national pay-for-performance summit February 27 - 29, 2008, at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. President and CEO Richard A. Norling will participate in the keynote panel discussion and debate, Premier Healthcare Informatics Senior Vice President Stephanie Alexander will lead a concurrent session and Premier along with several guest speakers will present a pre-conference education session.

Norling will take part in the February 27 keynote panel and discussion of the topic “Is Pay for Performance Working?” at the leading national forum on pay for performance, transparency and value driven healthcare, sponsored by the Integrated Healthcare Association. Alexander’s February 28 concurrent session will be on government programs, “CMS/Premier Demonstration – Innovations in Hospital Quality Performance and Outcomes Research.”

"Our work with hundreds of hospitals across the nation in the Premier/CMS HQID demonstration continues to provide evidence of how the U.S. healthcare system is showing improvements and patients are getting higher quality healthcare," Norling said. “We look forward to sharing with other hospitals at the summit how participating hospitals have established processes for the reliable delivery of basic care, improving clinical quality and safely reducing costs. These results are attainable by all hospitals nationwide."

Three Premier executives and representatives of three Premier client hospitals will present on February 27 in a half-day pre-conference session entitled “Advanced Strategies in Hospital Pay for Performance.” Since 2003, Premier has partnered with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project along with more than 250 participating hospitals.

Participants in the session and their topics include:

Daniel Grigg, MD, director, Center for Patient Safety and Clinical Effectiveness at Salem (Ore.) Hospital, rapid clinical improvements for hospital-wide success;
Lori B. Knitt, RN, BSN, director, Medical Staff/Quality Services, Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center, Sheboygan, Wisc., unique improvement tools from an HQID top performer;
Ginny Ripslinger, assistant vice president, Knowledge Management, St. Joseph's Health System in Orange, Calif., data driven approach to improvements by an HQID top performer;
Frank Johnson, vice president, Premier, overview of advanced strategies in hospital pay for performance and review of the QUEST: High Performing Hospitals program; and,
Jan McNeilly, director, Premier, a summary of lessons learned from top performing HQID hospitals.

Hospital quality continues to improve while patient mortality rates and hospital costs decline among participants the CMS/Premier HQID demonstration project, according to a recent analysis by Premier. Based on 1.1 million patient records from participating HQID hospitals, if all hospitals nationally were to achieve the three-year cost and mortality improvements found among the project’s participants for pneumonia, heart bypass, heart failure, heart attack (acute myocardial infarction), and hip and knee replacement patients, they could save an estimated 70,000 lives per year and reduce hospital costs by more than $4.5 billion annually.

The initial three-year HQID project began in October 2003 and has been extended by CMS for an additional three years (through 2009). The project collects a set of more than 30 evidence-based clinical quality measures from more than 250 hospitals across the country. The quality measures were developed by government and private organizations. For more information on the indicators, visit www.qualitydemo.com.

About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Serving more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals and nearly 50,000 other healthcare sites, the Premier healthcare alliance and its members are transforming healthcare together. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the leading healthcare purchasing networks and the nation's most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information. A subsidiary operates one of the nation's largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups. A world leader in helping healthcare providers deliver dramatic improvements in care, Premier is working with the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.