News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797
Premier healthcare alliance experts to lead discussions on pay-for-performance, ethical business practices in healthcare
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (January 7, 2008) – Leaders from the Premier healthcare alliance will speak around the country in January, sharing insights regarding ethical business practices in healthcare, along with pay-for-performance (P4P) based on Premier’s Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Premier President and Chief Executive Officer Richard A. Norling and Premier Chief Operating Officer Susan D. DeVore will discuss ethical challenges in our nation’s changing healthcare system as featured speakers at the Healthcare Group Purchasing Industry Initiative Annual Best Practices Forum on January 15 in Washington, D.C. Nine of the nation’s leading group purchasing organizations, serving the majority of America’s hospitals, founded the Healthcare Group Purchasing Industry Initiative in 2005 to promote and monitor best ethical and business practices in purchasing for hospitals and other healthcare providers.
Premier Regional Vice President Ritchie Soos will discuss the HQID
project at the Massachusetts Hospital Association’s 41st Annual Mid-Winter
Leadership Forum on January 25 in Framingham, Mass.
The HQID is the first national project of its kind, designed to determine if
economic incentives to hospitals are effective at improving the quality of
inpatient care. As part of the project, more than 250 hospitals submit
clinical quality data to Premier through the Perspective™ data warehouse.
CMS, which approved a three-year extension of the project in February, then
uses the data to identify and reward top performers in five clinical areas.
Premier recently launched “QUEST: High Performing Hospitals” based on many
of the same principles used in the HQID project. The goal of QUEST is to
improve patient safety and quality in the nation’s hospitals while safely
reducing healthcare costs. QUEST participating hospitals report data to
Premier on a set of clearly defined performance measures encompassing
aspects of quality, efficiency, safety and patient satisfaction. Premier
analyzes the data, facilitates sharing of best practices, and provides
incentives for top-performing hospitals.
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.