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Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797

Premier healthcare alliance to expand participation in initiative to eliminate preventable birth injuries

Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative designed to enhance communications, reliable use of evidence-based quality measures; Healthcare experts to serve as advisors, provide expertise

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 14, 2009) – The Premier healthcare alliance has launched a second Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative (PSI), a national collaborative designed to achieve the consistent delivery of evidence-based care with the goal of eliminating preventable birth-related injuries and deaths.

Premier is currently recruiting participants for the second PSI collaborative. The existing PSI is comprised of 16 of the country's leading hospitals in which approximately 115,000 babies will be delivered over the course of the collaborative. Click here for a list of participating hospitals.

"Nowhere is reliable, evidence-based care more important than in the obstetrics suite," said Susan DeVore, Premier's incoming president and CEO. "We have learned through the first phase of this project and additional research that the consistent, reliable delivery of care bundles established by industry experts reduces birth injuries."

As part of the initiative, Premier has established an advisory committee of healthcare experts to garner guidance in undertaking the program and to ensure transparency.

About the Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative

Leveraging knowledge gained from similar initiatives, including a Premier/Institute for Healthcare Improvement collaboration, the participating hospitals aim to improve their culture of safety, increase teamwork and improve communications among team members. The initiative also evaluates cost savings through supply chain improvements and the reduction of adverse events.

Currently, there are five recurring clinical issues that are commonly cited as being responsible for the majority of perinatal harm and associated costs and obstetrical professional liability. These issues include failure to recognize an infant in distress; failure to initiate a timely cesarean birth; failure to properly resuscitate a depressed baby; inappropriate use of labor-inducing drugs; and inappropriate use of vacuum or forceps.

Through the use of "care bundles," which are groups of evidence-based interventions that are more effective when implemented together rather than individually, participants work towards the reduction of perinatal injuries.

Project participants will work together to enhance sharing of information and best practices, all the while documenting cost and quality impact consistently and reliably to assess opportunities for improvement.

For more information, please visit www.premierinc.com/risk/tools-services/perinatal/index.jsp.

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.