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CONTACT:
Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797

Premier healthcare alliance names industry expert to lead QUEST quality and cost improvement collaborative

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 21, 2009) – The Premier healthcare alliance has named a healthcare industry expert to lead its QUEST: High Performing Hospitals collaborative. Carolyn Scott, R.N., M.ED., M.H.A., has joined Premier as vice president of Performance Improvement and Quality and will oversee QUEST, a nationwide hospital quality and cost improvement collaborative.

"After a thorough search of highly qualified candidates, Carolyn was chosen to lead the QUEST program and assist participating hospitals to reach new levels of performance," said Susan DeVore, Premier incoming president and CEO. "Premier is excited to add her expertise and leadership to the QUEST program."

Scott serves as a member of National Quality Forum's Steering Committee for Care Coordination. She comes to Premier from KPMG, where she served as the director of their Healthcare Advisory Services. While there, she developed methodologies and led and assisted in engagements involving matters of healthcare quality and clinical performance. Prior to KPMG, Scott was a senior director in Clinical Performance at VHA Inc. She was also an administrative supervisor of Nursing Administration at Premier alliance member Texas Health Hurst-Euless-Bedford in Bedford, Texas.

Scott holds a master's degree in healthcare administration from the University of Texas at Arlington where she graduated with honors; a bachelor of science and nursing from Texas Christian University where she graduated magna cum laude; a master's of education from Texas A&M University; and a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Texas at El Paso.

QUEST is a voluntary, three-year project with 166 not-for-profit hospitals – urban and rural, teaching and non-teaching, large and small – across 31 states designed to springboard hospitals to new levels of performance. Using benchmarked data from the Premier healthcare alliance's clinical database, Premier and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) identified the main factors that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs. Using this information, hospitals are able to share best practices and systematically initiate efforts proven to dramatically improve quality and patient outcomes. QUEST's three-year performance improvement targets are to:

Deliver the most reliable and effective care – Deliver every recommended evidence-based care measure for each patient.
Safely reduce the cost of care – Reduce inpatient costs below the midpoint among participating hospitals.
Save lives – Achieve a substantial reduction in the expected mortality rate.
Improve patient safety – Prevent incidents of harm in more than 20 categories, including healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) and birth injuries.
Increase satisfaction – Dramatically improve the patient care experience.

QUEST also benefits from an advisory panel of experts from 20 of the country's top healthcare organizations, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, National Quality Forum, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

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.