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Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
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Premier healthcare alliance members present successful pre-conference session at pay-for-performance summit

Hospitals share experiences with tools that drove rapid HQID improvements

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (March 14, 2008) — Three members of the Premier healthcare alliance held a room captive for more than three hours February 27 describing how they used Premier tools to drive rapid improvement to achieve top performer status in the Premier/CMS Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project during a pre-conference session of the third national pay-for-performance summit in Los Angeles.

“Salem Hospital was able to achieve success quickly by having the will, the ideas, and most importantly the ability to execute effectively,” said Daniel Grigg, director, Center for Patient Safety and Clinical Effectiveness at Salem (Ore.) Hospital. “Our five-step execution model of design, educate, validate competency, measure conformance, and intervention / appropriate action has been instrumental in our ability to see rapid results.”

Said Lori B. Knitt, RN, BSN, director, Medical Staff/Quality Services, Aurora Sheboygan (Wisc.) Memorial Medical Center, “Our strategy involved using standard order sets, educating physicians and staff about the metrics, delivering rapid feedback, and rewarding success. Our success is largely attributed to using unique improvement tools across the hospital. They included staff newsletters, measurement games on each nursing unit, and an HQID “Carnival,” quarterly scorecards that are publicly displayed. After trying a number of approaches, we concluded that making our efforts real, timely, and personal works best.”

At St. Joseph’s Health System in Orange, Calif., Ginny Ripslinger, assistant vice president, Knowledge Management said, “We had a system-wide approach for improving performance. With focused leadership, alignment of clinicians and physicians, accountability in work processes, and ongoing awareness of progress, we were able to achieve success across our ministries.”

Premier Vice President Frank Johnson and Director Jan McNeilly also shared a summary of lessons learned and innovative solutions for improving hospital performance. The pre-conference session was such a success that Premier plans to present it again as an online teleconference so it can be made available to a wider audience.

The Premier healthcare alliance since 2003 has partnered with more than 250 participating hospitals and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the HQID project. It continues to provide evidence that participants’ quality continues to improve while patient mortality rates and hospital costs decline. The project has been extended by CMS for an additional three years (through 2009).

The Premier/CMS HQID 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, visit www.qualitydemo.com.

About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 80,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. https://premierinc.com. Stay connected with Premier on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.