Premier in the news
Challenging China: Supply chain could be affected by raw materials
dispute; Modern Healthcare; 6/29/09: A global trade dispute over
raw materials could affect the cost of producing surgical instruments,
hospital beds, operating room tables and other healthcare equipment and
supplies. Mike Alkire, president of Premier Purchasing Partners, said that
such restrictions have over the years prompted medical products companies to
concentrate manufacturing in China in order to access cheaper prices.
"Because we are so dependent on China, we have huge risks," Alkire said.
"One of the concepts I've been pushing is spreading out the manufacturing of
goods to near shore areas like Central America and South America," Alkire
said. The U.S. trade representative's dispute resolution efforts could help
facilitate such activity, he said.
Full story
Premier comments on meaningful use; Health Data Management;
6/29/09: Compliance targets for meaningful use of electronic health
records in 2011 "should be set at appropriate levels in light of the current
absence of a functioning electronic health information exchange in most
communities, and the time typically necessary to implement an HIE," provider
alliance Premier Inc. advises in a comment letter to federal officials.
Full story
Premier: Go slow on quality measures test; Health Data Management;
6/26/09: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in its proposed
rule to make changes to inpatient prospective patient systems for acute care
hospitals in 2010, calls for testing the submission of quality measures
derived from electronic health records. That's a good idea, according to
Premier Inc., but the San Diego-based provider alliance has some concerns.
Full story
A roundtable discussion: Experts delve into imaging service,
technology management issues; Imaging Horizons; 2009 issue:
Several experts in medical technology recently participated in a roundtable
conference call to discuss a variety of issues in imaging service. The
discussion was moderated by Carol Davis-Smith of Premier Consulting
Solutions.
Full story
(.pdf), reprinted with permission from the Association for the
Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI),
www.aami.org
Healthcare alliance streamlines supply chain management; Healthcare
Finance News; 6/24/09: This article discusses how healthcare
executives and administrators are striving to remove inefficiencies across
all of their operations in the face of reduced staff during the recession.
"We always look to operate our business as lean as we can," says Premier's
John Biggers, group vice president of Sourcing. Using BravoSolution's
Web-based tool to automate contracting processes involving approximately 100
users across two offices, Premier staff is doing more with less. "The gain
in the tool is improving productivity," Biggers said.
Full story
Dealing with personnel issues; Modern Healthcare; 6/22/09:
In 2007, Geisinger Heath System partnered with one of its payers, sister
company Geisinger Health Plan, to launch a quality improvement initiative
called Personal Health Navigator. The program, which assigns patients
medical homes with the sickest 20% also receiving nurse case managers to
coordinate their care, was employed to test whether a different model of
care could improve the health system's productivity. Geisinger isn't the
only healthcare organization questioning old productivity formulas and
testing new ways of measuring how efficiently it accomplishes goals. Other
providers and payers are also putting more emphasis on tethering healthcare
outcomes and costs to one another when determining whether their
organizations are adequately productive. "When we talk about productivity
and whether you get the work done, we're asking, 'Are you meeting needs and
being high-functioning even while you're addressing financial issues?'" said
Wes Champion, senior vice president of Premier Consulting Solutions, a
division of the group purchasing and healthcare quality-improvement
organization Premier.
Full story (subscription required)
Premier leader honored for contributions to medical technology;
AAMI News; 6/09 issue: Carol Davis-Smith, director with Premier Consulting Solutions and chair of the Association for the Advancement of Medical
Instrumentation's (AAMI) Technology Management Council, has been awarded the 2009 AAMI Clinical/Biomedical Engineering Achievement Award. "In her 21 years as a clinical engineer, [Davis-Smith] has demonstrated a keen understanding of what it means to be a clinical engineer, and has given back to the field by educating and promoting the profession and its ideals to both the biomedical and clinical communities," said Bridget Moorman, president of BMoorman Consulting.
Full story
Premier picks 23 top performing hospitals; Healthcare IT News;
6/18/09: The Premier healthcare alliance has singled out 23 hospitals as
the top in the country for their commitment to high-quality patient care and
operational efficiency. Several of the criteria Premier used to gauge
performance have information technology underpinnings. Premier chose the
hospitals from more than 3,796 eligible hospitals nationwide, at Premier’s
annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition in Anaheim, Calif.
Full story
Buy-in power; Repertoire; 6/09 issue: Purchasing coalitions
mean good business, and in today's economy, smart business choices can make
or break providers. As more small hospitals struggle to maintain their
financial independence and avoid staff cutbacks, regional purchasing
coalitions, or aggregation groups or alliances as some prefer to call them,
continue to provide a viable means of effectively managing hospital costs,
according to experts. So, hospital financial officers and contracting
executives continue to buy into them, and group-purchasing executives
continue to support them. Premier (Charlotte, N.C.) has watched its
purchasing coalitions take off in recent years. "Over the last five years,
the number of Premier-affiliated regional aggregation groups has more than
doubled," says Mike Alkire, president, Premier Purchasing Partners.
Full story
Rapid tests catch on fast; Repertoire; 6/09 issue: Taking
their cue from physician practices, hospital-based physicians, lab directors
and clinicians are increasingly recognizing the value of point-of-care
testing in hospital settings. Although patient population and cost continue
to influence which hospitals are likely to purchase which tests, overall
acceptance appears to be on the upswing. The increasing accuracy of rapid
tests has also helped to drive the hospital market, according to Barbara M.
Maillet, senior director, laboratory services, Premier (Charlotte, N.C.).
Full story
Premier buys management firm Phase 2 Consulting; Modern Healthcare;
6/2/09: Premier, Charlotte, N.C., has acquired healthcare management
firm Phase 2 Consulting, formerly a division of publicly traded RehabCare
Group, St. Louis. Details of the transaction will not be disclosed, Premier
spokesman Alven Weil said.
Full story (login required)
With specialty-drug infusion centers, attention to the bottom line is
vital; Drug Topics; 6/1/09: With the specialty-drug pipeline
brimming with hundreds of potential new infusion therapies, hospitals need
to find new ways to ensure patient access to these medications. One way is
through an outpatient specialty-drug infusion center. Before hospitals break
ground for such a center, they must plan to avoid financial repercussions,
said Fred Pane, RPh, senior director of pharmacy affairs at Premier Inc., an
alliance of hospitals and health systems.
Full story
Purchasers beware: Better oversight of foreign pharma plants just the
first step; Modern Healthcare; 6/1/09: In this article, Mike
Alkire, Premier Purchasing Partners president, explains the importance of
improved government oversight and law enforcement plus tougher penalties for
counterfeits found within the supply chain, from chemicals to finished
products, particularly those manufactured in China and India. The World
Health Organization says up to 10 percent of the world's medicines are
fakes; in China and India, that's true for up to a third of medicines sold.
Even so, U.S. drug companies purchase 40 percent of their active
pharmaceutical ingredients, or API, from the counterfeiting hotbeds of India
and China – with some estimating this may reach 80 percent within 15 years.
"We have a moral imperative to ensure safety and punish those who would put
lives in jeopardy. We all have a role to play and a responsibility to get it
right. Anything short of that is unacceptable," writes Alkire.
Full story (subscription required)
Economic collapse spurs creative thinking; Hospitals & Health
Networks; 5/09 issue: As the recession lingers and hospital bottom
lines take a beating, executives are getting more aggressive about
controlling costs. That means shining a brighter light on supplies, which is
actually creating opportunities to improve operations. Steep drops in
interest income – combined with the credit crunch – have greatly impaired
hospitals' abilities to spend, says Mike Alkire, president of Premier Purchasing
Partners, Charlotte, N.C. Where some institutions were seeing interest
income of roughly $4 million per year, today it's more like $2.4 million.
"If your interest income is 60 percent of what it used to be, that has to
have an impact on your bottom line," he says.
Full story
CMS: 'Value' proposition puts onus on hospitals; Healthcare Finance
News; 5/27/09: This article discusses the Value-Based Purchasing
initiative aimed at hospitals, as CMS aggressively aims to curtail
expenditures wherever it can. It is part of a larger CMS reimbursement
reduction movement that also includes the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC)
program, Medicare-Severity DRGs (MS-DRGs) and pay-for-performance (P4P).
Premier helped lay the groundwork for Value-Based Purchasing and its
companion initiatives through a project called HQID – Hospital Quality
Incentive Demonstration, the largest CMS demonstration project to date.
Full story
Premier's Susan DeVore recognized as one of North Carolina's most
influential and dynamic leaders; Business Leader;
5/20/09: Susan DeVore has been named to Business Leader magazine's annual list of "Power Players," North Carolina's most influential and dynamic leaders. According to the magazine, the Power Players
"are among the individuals who have taken up the challenge of leading North Carolina out of this recession" and have made "unique and vital contributions to our state and its economic recovery."
Full story
Hospital advocates address delivery system reform; Healthcare Finance News;
5/18/09: The American Hospital Association and the Premier healthcare alliance have submitted separate comments to the
Senate Finance Committee on its proposed options for reforming the healthcare delivery system. Premier endorsed VBP as "a tool that should be applied not only to existing Medicare payment models but also to the longer-term approaches such as bundled payments and the creation of Accountable Care Organizations."
However, the organization said the VBP program should promote quality improvement through incentive payments, rather than guarantee savings.
Full story
Yale obstetrics safety plan cuts adverse events by 40 percent; American Medical News;
5/18/09: Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut cut adverse obstetrics outcomes by about 40 percent after implementing a comprehensive
patient safety program. Included in the Yale-New Haven strategy is
participation in the Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative and creation of
an obstetrics safety nurse position. While the initiative's results will
not be released until next spring, Kathy Connolly, principal of women's
services with Premier Consulting Solutions, said the early results are
encouraging enough that Premier will start accepting more hospitals in
the project in September.
Full story
One state's big goal: No HAIs; Hospitals & Health Networks;
5/09 issue: This article by Premier's Susan DeVore and Chuck Beaman from
Palmetto Health discusses the state of South Carolina's efforts to eliminate
preventable infections via the South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust. Say
Beaman and DeVore, "The time has come for revolutionary new approaches to
tackling this very real public health issue, and the South Carolina
Healthcare Quality Trust will certainly serve as a national standard for
others to follow. Eliminating all preventable HAIs is an aggressive charge,
but nothing less is acceptable. Our patients are counting on us."
Full story (.pdf)
Premier CIO conducting data synchrony; Healthcare Purchasing News;
5/09 issue: This article describes Premier's efforts as it works with 25 high-ranking hospital supply chain executives of
its Strategic Advisory Committee, to formally request that contracted suppliers adopt GS1 data standards and processes to
"improve patient safety, reduce avoidable supply chain costs and advance collaborative supply chain performance initiatives."
Premier's Joe Pleasant Jr., senior vice president and CIO, discussed with Healthcare Purchasing News
the
muscle behind data synchronization standards adoption.
Full story
Waiting for reform; Modern Healthcare;
5/11/09: Lawmakers will likely wait to see what the long-anticipated healthcare-reform legislation package will
include before moving on several high-profile bills that, if passed, would significantly affect how medical
device and drug companies develop, market and manufacture their products, healthcare policy experts say.
Blair Childs, Premier senior
vice president of public affairs, explained that lawmakers also are trying to take a global look at proposed healthcare legislation
to see how all the parts fit together. "A lot of ideas in individual bills are being woven into the broader package so they can
consider if you move one dial what would it do to other knobs on the dashboard," said Childs.
Full story
(subscription required)
The hospital gown, fashion malady, worries would-be redesigners sick;
The Wall Street Journal; 5/11/09: The traditional American hospital
gown – flimsy in front, open to the breeze in the back – has been around about
as long as the Band-Aid. If anything, it has changed less. Patient gowns are
now a $76 million market, according to Premier Inc. Michael Georgulis, a
vice president at Premier Inc., thinks the traditional gown has suffered a
bum rap. In addition to being inexpensive, its easy-access design "works
well" in emergencies, he says. "Given all the challenges facing hospitals
and health care," aren't there more pressing problems worth tackling? he
asks.
Full story
WHO initiates worldwide campaign to promote hand hygiene;
HealthLeaders Media; 5/6/09: The World Health Organization's (WHO)
Alliance for Patient Safety Tuesday officially kicked off its "Save Lives:
Clean Your Hands" initiative to encourage hospitals and healthcare
facilities worldwide to raise awareness of hand hygiene to reduce often
preventable healthcare-associated infections. The Premier healthcare
alliance has been promoting the WHO initiative to hospitals participating in
its QUEST performance and quality improvement collaborative.
Full story
Change has finally come: U.S. healthcare industry to implement common
data standards to improve safety, reduce costs; GS1 Healthcare Reference Book;
5/09: An article (pages 6-9) by Premier CIO Joe Pleasant discusses the healthcare industry's strides toward a consistent set of supply chain data standards and a system to
synchronize product information to enhance patient safety and reduce costs. Says Pleasant, "The question has evolved from 'if' to 'when'
the industry will reap the benefits of adopting and implementing consistent supply chain data standards, and that time has come."
Full story
(.pdf)
GPOs: Savings beyond product discounts; Healthcare Finance News;
5/5/09: GPOs are a practical solution to counter the ever mounting cost
of healthcare. That's the conclusion from a
new report by Dr.
Eugene Schneller, professor, Arizona State University and principal,
Health Care Sector Advances, Inc. But savings are more than just discounts.
GPOs have expanded offerings to provide value-added services, including
collaboratives – such as the
Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative – that bring hospitals together to
share best practices and improve outcomes.
Full story
Richard Norling honored at Partners in Care Foundation's Vision &
Excellence in Healthcare Leadership tribute dinner; Partners in Care Foundation Web site;
5/4/09: In recognition of his outstanding leadership in changing the shape of healthcare, Richard A. Norling,
president and CEO of Premier Inc.,
has been named the recipient of Partners in Care Foundation's 2009 Mathies Award. This award recognizes and honors an inspired
healthcare leader who has had an important impact on changing the shape of healthcare.
Full story
Premier joins WHO hand hygiene initiative; WHO Web site;
5/4/09: Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) launches an important global hand hygiene initiative,
SAVE LIVES:
Clean Your Hands. Premier and many of our members have joined this initiative. Overall, more than 4,500 healthcare
facilities globally are supporting this new initiative to highlight and promote hand hygiene – the correct
techniques and how to inform and educate healthcare staff, as well as patients and the general public.
Full story
CMS proposes historically low inpatient payment increases;
HealthLeaders Media; 5/1/09: CMS late Friday afternoon announced
historically low net increases of well below 1% in its 2010 payment rates
for Medicare inpatient services by both acute-care and long-term care
hospitals, and signaled that even larger reductions may be coming in the
next two years. Blair Childs, senior vice president of public affairs at
Premier health alliance, says he is "extremely disappointed" by CMS's net
payment cut of 0.5%, on average" and noted that hospital payments are
already 7% below costs.
Full story
Infusion centers for specialty drugs: Hospitals step up; Modern Medicine;
5/1/09: Rising costs and falling reimbursements are causing many physicians to move out of the specialty-drug infusion
business and ask hospitals to take on the job. Premier's Fred Pane, RPh, senior director of pharmacy affairs, advises
hospital pharmacists to keep in touch with physicians who might drop their infusion service in order to avoid unexpected
increases in patient volume.
Full story
Using data to change processes; Health Data Management; 5/1/09:
Data mining can be the foundation for meaningful changes in the practice of
medicine. Inova Health System has evidence that proves this is far more than
just a hypothesis. Inova is using Web-based data mining software called
Quality Manager from Premier Inc., a Charlotte, N.C.-based purchasing
alliance. It's a participant in Premier's QUEST, a quality improvement
benchmarking project. The alliance recently announced that it will expand
the project beyond the original 166 hospitals.
Full story
Flu has sole U.S. surgical mask producer scrambling; CNN;
4/30/09: Health care suppliers say if the swine flu outbreak
becomes a pandemic, it could severely strain hospitals' efforts to get
necessary equipment like masks, gloves and antibiotics. "What this situation
should teach us is that we need to take a critical look at where we source
pandemic supplies and in what quantities," said Mike Alkire, president of
Purchasing Partners for Premier Inc., a North Carolina-based healthcare
improvement alliance with a division that negotiates supply contracts for
its more than 2,100 member hospitals.
Full story
Charlotte and swine flu; WCCB-TV; 4/30/09: Fear of catching
the swine flu is leading people to take precautions in the Charlotte area
and across the U.S. Registered nurse Leslie Schultz with the Premier Inc.
healthcare alliance says if you think you are infected with the swine flu,
or you are taking care of someone who is possibly infected, it’s a good idea
to wear a surgical mask. But, she says, for most people the best defense is
a lot of hand washing.
Full story
Pandemic expert with latest on swine flu; WGN TV; 4/27/09:
Gina Pugliese, vice president, Premier Safety Institute, speaks with WGN
News in Chicago to discuss the latest on swine flu: why experts are
concerned and watching this flu virus so carefully, the importance of
vaccination and tips on how you can protect yourself. View the video and
explore the resources available from the Safety Institute.
Full story
Premier, members featured in book on transforming quality; Google;
4/24/09: Premier's Richard Bankowitz, along with alliance members
Hackensack University Medical Center, Alegent Health System, Fairview
Northland Medical Center and Geisinger Health System, are featured in the
recently released book, "Transformative Quality: The Emerging Revolution in
Health Care Performance." Premier and these members are referenced on a
number of occasions, specific to the HQID project. A preview of the book is
available online.
Full story
Purchasing points: Leveraging GPO relationships; Advance for
Administrators of the Laboratory; 4/24/09: "In today's trying
economic times, hospitals are searching for ways to reduce costs, improve
value and maintain the quality of services provided. Considering what
hospitals spend each year on medical equipment and supplies, this is a
critical area of focus and an expense that can be dramatically reduced to
preserve financial viability without compromising patient care," write
Helene Gulczynski, laboratory specialist and Barbara M. Maillet, senior
director of Laboratory Services at Premier.
Full story
When does use become "meaningful?"; Healthcare Informatics;
4/17/09: Dr. Richard Bankowitz, vice president and medical director,
Premier Healthcare Informatics, discusses the $17 billion that the nation
will spend to encourage the adoption and use of the electronic health
records (EHR). "The legislation stipulates that in order to qualify for the
incentive payments, hospitals and physicians must use an EHR that has been
"certified" and the use must be "meaningful" – two words that are likely to
cause a lot of discussion in the near future." Read Dr. Bankowitz's
definition through his blog entry on the Healthcare Informatics Web site.
Full story
Cover story: The ultimate QUEST; The Journal of Healthcare
Contracting; 3/09-4/09 issue: This series of articles focuses on
Premier's QUEST™: High Performing Hospitals project and the QUEST
Comparative Innovation Program. It features interviews with Premier's Susan
DeVore, Mike Alkire, Richard Bankowitz and Andy Brailo, as well as alliance
members Aurora Health Care, Gaston Memorial Hospital and Kettering Health
Network. "I believe (QUEST) is the model for healthcare improvement," says
DeVore. According to Alkire, "The collaborative nature of QUEST allows
participants to identify the high performers and learn from them." Says Jan
Mathews from Gaston, "All of the hospitals participating in QUEST are
sharing data. We are helping each other and looking at patient care across
the nation."
Full story (.pdf)
One-on-one with Susan DeVore, Premier's incoming president and CEO;
Healthcare Informatics; 4/17/09: Healthcare Informatics talks with
Susan DeVore, Premier's incoming president and CEO, about how competing
hospitals in South Carolina are working together to eliminate
healthcare-associated infections and lower costs. "This does seem to be a
first-time-ever cooperative, with private hospitals, a government arm, and a
private organization like Premier involved. And we really think it's through
these public/private partnerships working together to make it happen, that
will help healthcare reform and transformation really take place," says
DeVore.
Full story
Grant helps two S.D. health systems continue partnership; The
(Mitchell, SD) Daily Republic; 4/16/09: A federal grant will help
two large South Dakota health systems continue a collaboration that produced
savings of $5 million in its first year. The network was created about one
year ago by Avera Health and Regional Health – two vast health systems
headquartered in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, respectively – in partnership
with the Premier healthcare alliance. The purpose of the network is to join
the two health systems' many facilities together into one powerful buying
pool.
Full story
Web-based infection control tool helps protect patients; NurseZone.com;
4/09 issue: In hospitals alone, health-care associated infections
account for an estimated 2 million infections, 90,000 deaths and $4.5
billion in excess health care costs annually. In an effort to lower these
statistics, SafetySurveillor™, a new Web-based solution from Premier, Inc.,
provides electronic surveillance to infection control professionals and
clinical pharmacists.
Full story
Group of House Democrats is pushing reform bill with public insurance
plan; AHA News Now; 4/13/09: A majority of the 77-member
Congressional Progress Caucus – a group of liberal House Democrats – has
threatened to vote against health reform legislation that does not create a
public health insurance plan to compete with private health insurers. But
expanding coverage alone won’t improve the nation's health care system,
hospital executives testified at an April 1 House Ways and Means Committee
hearing. They also expressed support for reforms that reward health care
quality and promote better care coordination. Lawrence Smith, M.D., chief
medical officer at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great
Neck, NY, said quality incentives "can and do improve patient outcomes
across a wide variety of measures and payers," as evidenced by his health
system's participation in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration.
Full story
Common good in the Commonwealth; Repertoire; 4/09 issue:
Madisonville, a town of about 20,000 in western Kentucky, lacked power for a
week after an ice storm, which struck Jan. 26 and Jan. 27. Even two weeks
after the storm, a quarter of the homes and businesses in Madisonville were
still awaiting resumption of power. Given that, it’s no surprise that Trover
Health System became a magnet for the stranded and the sick. Soon after the
storm hit, The IDN's materials management director, Tim Ingram was on the
phone with Premier's emergency response team, who acted as a communications
conduit throughout the ordeal. Premier also helped source a variety of
things, including fuel, generators and batteries.
Full story
Hospital supply chain staff face challenges in unstable economy;
Healthcare Finance News; 4/2/09: Some manufacturers selling products
to hospitals are projecting price decreases in the next six months, while
others suggest increases of up to 20 percent, according to a new analysis by
the Premier healthcare alliance. Earlier this week, Premier released its
Economic Outlook and Inflation Estimates analysis through August 2009. The
report suggests that current economic conditions are making the financial
decisions of not-for-profit hospitals more difficult than ever before.
Full story
In the hospital, facing a scourge of killer clots; The Wall Street
Journal; 4/1/09: Helping to pressure hospitals to do a better job to
prevent blood clots is a threat of reduced payments from Medicare, which
last year began withholding payments for certain preventable occurrences.
Recently added to Medicare's list of "never events" that aren't reimbursed
are DVT and pulmonary embolisms following knee or hip surgery. Hospital
alliance Premier Inc. is working with about 250 hospitals on better
compliance with DVT-prevention measures in a project co-sponsored by
Medicare.
Full story
How green was my hospital; Health Data Management; 4/1/09:
When it comes to environmentalism in health care, hospitals have many venues
through which they can become more responsible corporate citizens.
Electronics recycling is one. Eliminating paper records is another with
direct ramifications for I.T. Beyond that, some hospitals are looking at
building design and even food consumption as part of their greening effort.
It's about time, some say. "Health care disproportionately impacts climate
change," asserts Gina Pugliese, vice president of the Safety Institute run
by Premier Inc., a San Diego-based hospital alliance and group purchasing
organization. Pugliese heads an effort called SPHERE, short for "Securing
Proven Healthcare Energy Reduction for the Ecosystem."
Full story
Crafting a supply chain standards stimulus package; Healthcare
Purchasing News; 4/09 issue: Advocates and observers have promoted
the estimable benefits of standards for tracking medical devices for years.
But current efforts to accelerate adoption and implementation of standards,
let alone IT, have yet to generate the necessary traction. So how do you
convince at least 50.1 percent of healthcare facilities in operation today
to start using standards, such as GS1’s, fully by 2013? "Peer pressure is a
strong motivator, especially when one’s peers are seeing successes," said
Joe Pleasant Jr., FHIMSS, CIO and senior vice president, Premier Inc.
Full
story
Upon closer inspection; Modern Healthcare;
3/30/09:
As the U.S. imports more drugs and devices, the Food and Drug
Administration's overseas initiatives are aiming to head off potential
safety concerns at the source. Despite such efforts, some say the agency
has made little headway on other crucial import safety initiatives. “The
FDA has a comprehensive action plan to ensure import safety, however one
of the key measures recommended in the plan is to move forward with
technology standards that could enhance safety and improve the
effectiveness of recalls, such as (universal device identifiers) and
track-and-trace technology,” says Blair Childs, spokesman for the group
purchasing organization Premier. “To date, little progress has been made
in this area, and movement is absolutely critical to ensuring patient
safety.”
Full story (login required)
Best practices: Supply chain top ten; Inside Healthcare;
3/26/09: By now, most hospitals have already
taken a first pass at cutting supply costs – joining group purchasing
organizations, forming value assessment teams, and standardizing commodities.
But there is still work to be done, say supply chain experts. In this article, Wes Champion, senior vice president of Premier
Consulting Solutions, identifies some of the processes that can lead to significant savings
along your supply chain.
Full story
Olympic medalist visits youngsters at Premier-sponsored event; The Charlotte (NC) Observer; 3/26/09:
Five-time Olympic medalist Nastia Liukin visited with youngsters
Wednesday afternoon at the Levine Children's Hospital at Carolinas
Medical Center, a Premier owner. Liukin also spoke at the Charlotte
Convention Center on Wednesday evening on behalf of the Charlotte-based
Premier healthcare alliance as a part of a free, open to the public
event. Liukin discussed teen obesity and habits that lead to a healthy
lifestyle, and followed with a question and answer session and a meet
and greet photo session with fans.
Full story
Safety in numbers; Modern Healthcare; 3/23/09: The number
of designated patient-safety organizations, or PSOs, continues to grow
faster than originally anticipated by the federal agency overseeing the
program. Last week, the group purchasing and quality network Premier
announced it had formed a PSO subsidiary to collect and analyze patient
data.
Full story (subscription required)
Premier's new CEO to lead alliance from Charlotte office; Charlotte
(NC) Business Journal; 3/20/09: Susan DeVore sees an opportunity to transform health care. As incoming president and chief executive of
Premier Inc., DeVore plans to position the healthcare alliance for growth, leading the business from Charlotte.
CEO Rick Norling retires from San Diego-based Premier on June 30. DeVore, now Premier's chief operating officer,
will lead its four business units – Premier Purchasing Partners, Premier Healthcare Informatics, Premier
Consulting Solutions and Premier Insurance Management Services Inc.
Full story
Keys to engaging clinicians in clinical IT; Healthcare Financial Management Association;
3/19/09: This article, written by Premier's Richard Bankowitz, MD, vice president and medical director, healthcare
informatics, and Gregory R. Wise, MD, vice president, medical affairs, Kettering Medical Center, discusses
strategies to encourage clinician participation in clinical IT systems. The benefit? Reduced costs and improved
consistency of healthcare across the nation.
Full story
Purchasing points: Leveraging GPO relationships; Advance Laboratory;
3/17/09: This article, written by Premier's Helene Gulczynski, laboratory specialist, and Barbara Maillet, senior directory of laboratory services,
discusses how hospitals and their labs can reduce expenses and optimize the bottom line
by leveraging the relationship with
their group purchasing organization (GPO). While traditionally serving
to help hospitals reduce expenses through strategic contracting,
today's GPO now offers a wide variety of value-added services and creative options to
both lower costs and improve the quality of patient care.
Full story
Mixing drugs; Modern Healthcare; 3/16/09: The latest wave
of pharmaceutical consolidation gathered strength last week, but group
purchasing officials who oversee pharma contracts don't expect major changes
in price to wash over them as a result. Wayne Russell, senior director for
pharmacy affairs at the Charlotte, N.C.-based Premier hospital alliance,
said that the short-term impact of these deals is virtually nil.
Full story (subscription required)
The pressure builds; Modern Healthcare;
3/16/09: This article discusses how the effects of the recession are being felt within in the healthcare construction industry,
yet architects, builders, and engineers
still maintained a busy 2008 – which will likely continue through this year. Mark Kearschner,
Premier construction services director, says there’s still plenty of healthcare construction activity under way,
plus future new construction projects. Gina Pugliese, vice
president, Premier Safety Institute, also noted of the advantages of
single-patient rooms in infection control through the new
construction projects.
Full story
Her goal: Helping heal healthcare; The Charlotte (NC) Observer;
3/14/09:
Susan DeVore, a former healthcare consultant who joined Premier in 2003, succeeds chief executive Rick Norling, who is retiring. "The new job is
continuing to take Premier to the next level," said DeVore. "We're in a
wonderful position to help make healthcare a sustainable system for the future."
Full story
Premier taps DeVore for president, CEO positions; Modern Healthcare;
3/13/09:
Healthcare alliance Premier, Charlotte, N.C., announced the appointment of Susan DeVore to be
its next president and chief executive officer. DeVore, who has spent five years as chief operating officer,
will take over the post on July 1 after the retirement of Premier’s current president and CEO, Rick Norling.
Full story
Premier names incoming CEO; Charlotte (NC) Business Journal;
3/13/09: Health-care alliance Premier Inc. has named Susan DeVore as its
incoming chief executive and president. She replaces Rick Norling, who will
retire. The transition will happen over the next several months.
Full story
Let's heal ourselves first; HealthLeaders Media; 3/12/09:
"Each day, patients trust physicians to make decisions about how to best
treat illnesses. Physicians trust hospitals to provide them with the most
effective medicines and medical equipment. Hospitals trust manufacturers to
produce the most reliable, innovative healthcare products. Together, the
healthcare industry shares a responsibility to honor this trust by abiding
by the highest ethical standards," write Premier President and CEO Richard
Norling and Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for
Applied Ethics and Santa Clara University.
Full story
Premier joins ranks of AHRQ-qualified PSOs; Modern Healthcare;
3/12/09: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality named Premier's
patient-safety organization in its official PSO listing. As an AHRQ
designee, Premier will be able to collect, report and share patient-safety
data for providers that voluntarily participate.
Full story
Ice storm tests KY hospitals' mettle; HealthLeaders Media;
3/11/09: Methodist Hospital, a 205-licensed-bed community hospital in
Henderson, KY, not only kept the lights on when a lot of the region was in
the dark due to a crippling ice storm, but served as a shelter for
townspeople who'd lost power, needed a warm place to sleep and a hot meal,
and had nowhere else to turn. The hospital lost land-line and most of its
cellular telephone services and the icy roads cluttered with downed tree
limbs limited access, but Methodist continued to provide care because of
dedicated employees, a solid emergency management plan, and the help of
suppliers.
Full story
Power plays; Modern Healthcare;
3/9/09: This article discusses how healthcare providers are looking for ways to curtail rising utility
costs. Premier, working in conjunction with Practice Greenhealth, conducts reverse auctions for
its members. The goal, says Premier Purchasing Partners President Mike Alkire, is to force down prices by
setting up a competitive atmosphere where each supplier can see the anonymous bids placed by other suppliers.
The auction, bid reviews and vendor selection are completed within roughly five hours, with the contract going
to the supplier offering the best terms and pricing.
Premier member, Ingalls Health System,
for example, realized
$840,000 in savings on its purchase of renewable electricity
and natural gas through the Premier SPHERE program.
Full story
Flu syringe debacle points to priority of sharps safety; TMC News;
3/7/09: When a local public health department in California opened packages of FluVirin pre-filled syringes to start the flu immunization campaign,
the vaccine administrators were stunned. Contrary to federal law and regulation, the syringes had a fixed needle with no safety device. Gina
Pugliese, RN, MS, vice president of the Premier Safety Institute,
worked for years to convince manufacturers not to sell pre-filled syringes with fixed, conventional needles or kits with nonsafety syringes. "I'm surprised that in 2008, that there would be a pre-filled vaccine made without a safety needle,
considering OSHA has specifically mandated safety devices since 2001," Pugliese says.
Full story
Technology aids medical detectives in tracking HAIs; Healthcare Purchasing News;
3/09 issue: This article looks at Premier’s SafetySurveillor and how it helps more than 200 hospitals nationwide prevent healthcare-associated infections, as well as its role in the Premier QUEST project. The article also discusses the South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust, a project that Premier collaborating on with Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC) and the South Carolina Hospital Association.
Full story
Healthcare systems could get help with electronic records; Charlotte (NC) Business Journal;
2/27/09: This article examines how local healthcare providers that already have electronic health records systems
can still benefit from
federal economic stimulus funds. Premier's Blair Childs, senior vice president of public affairs, advises that "the money can be used to offset system upgrades
and maintenance expenses as well as startup costs."
Full story
Op-ed: Why one size doesn't fit all in medicine; The Boston Globe;
2/23/09: This op-ed piece discusses the importance of comparative effectiveness research and how "by harnessing the extraordinary
resources of the federal government, the newly created [Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research]
could...improve the delivery of care," just as Premier has done for its members through its data used by healthcare personnel to
help them make more informed decisions.
Full story
Partnership will bring care facilities together to reduce infections;
SC Now; 2/21/09: This article looks at the efforts of the state
of South Carolina to fight healthcare-associated infections through a
collaborative co-sponsored by Premier. "Putting infection control at the top
of our agenda is so critical to the quality of life to our patients," said
Lynda Wymbs, chief quality officer for Premier alliance member Carolinas
Hospital System, who added that the collaborative "could only make a
hospital visit safer."
Full story
Will we make history?; Hospitals & Health Networks;
2/15/09: This article discusses how health reform has been a national concern since the 1930s. With a new, determined president,
growing consensus and billions in federal funds, dramatic change may now be at hand. Premier's Blair Childs, senior vice president
of public affairs, offers solutions that must be included within reform,
including new payment models based on health outcomes
and efficiencies rather than volume. “Quality and cost do not have to be in opposition; they should go hand in glove,” Childs says.
Full story
Proposed federal health board could take decision-making away from
Congress; Hospitals
& Health Networks;
2/15/09: This article discusses the proposal of a federal health board, which "would be a quasi-governmental entity sheltered from partisan
politics through long-term appointments and empowered to make decisions on important and controversial health care issues." Premier's Blair
Childs, senior vice president of public affairs, believes "it would take it out of the political process and diminish the role of
advocacy groups."
Full story
House/Senate negotiators put final touches on stimulus package; BNA Health Care Daily Report; 2/13/09: House and Senate negotiators late Feb. 12 were putting the final touches on economic stimulus legislation (H.R. 1) that
includes funding for numerous health care programs. "This legislation will include essential provisions that will preserve the financial health of the nation's hospitals.
These funds represent a down-payment for hospitals to continue to make investments in improving the safety,
affordability and quality of care," said the Premier healthcare alliance
in a statement released to BNA.
Full story
(subscription required)
Tech efforts help hospitals improve infection control; Modern Healthcare;
2/10/09: Health Sciences South Carolina, the South Carolina Hospital Association
and the Premier healthcare alliance have announced a collaboration aimed at
disseminating research and best practices throughout the 65 hospitals that are
participating statewide. Two other quality projects Premier has worked on with
national and federal organizations – QUEST and the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality
Incentive Demonstration – have shown these types of collaborations and
standardized efforts can lead to improvement in care, said Susan DeVore,
Premier’s chief operating officer. “We know this works if you mobilize hospitals
and you mobilize data-capture,” she added.
Full story (login required)
Hospitals fighting infection; The Charlotte (NC) Observer;
2/8/09: Piedmont Medical Center has joined forces with other S.C.
hospitals in an effort to eliminate infections that patients pick up in the
hospital, officials say. The trust includes Health Sciences South Carolina,
the S.C. Hospital Association and the Charlotte-based Premier healthcare
alliance. The three partners plan to invest more than $1.7 million over
three years in the effort.
Full story
Zero infections; The (Rock Hill, SC) Herald; 2/6/09: Piedmont Medical Center
has joined forces with other South Carolina hospitals in an ongoing effort to
eliminate infections that patients pick up in the hospital, officials say.
"We're pushing for zero infections," chief medical officer Richard Patterson
said. The hospital is one of the state's 65 acute care hospitals that are
participating in the South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust – a voluntary
hospital and research university initiative that will address health care
quality challenges.
Full story
S.C. hospitals trying to stop infections; The Charlotte (NC) Observer;
2/6/09: South Carolina's private and university research hospitals are banding together to identify and curb
hospital infections. Curbing infections could save the state's hospitals as much as $40 million a year
and reduce the length of stay of patients by up to 24,000 days annually, according to the newly formed
South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust. The trust is a partnership of Health Sciences South Carolina,
S.C. Hospital Association and the Premier healthcare alliance, a quality and cost improvement alliance of
2,100 not-for-profit hospitals nationwide.
Full story
SC group establishes quality trust; FierceHealthcare; 2/5/09: A group of
healthcare organizations – including the South Carolina Hospital Association,
Health Sciences South Carolina and Premier healthcare alliance – are coming
together to study methods for lowering the incidence of patient harm and cutting
costs, as well as improving the overall health of state residents.
Full story
South Carolina hospitals could save $40M monitoring infections; Healthcare Finance News;
2/5/09: South Carolina's 65 acute care hospitals are banding together to prevent healthcare-acquired infections across
the state. Key to the effort is the use of an automated infection-monitoring tool developed by the Premier
healthcare alliance. Premier will also develop an information-sharing portal to support the initiative.
Full story
South Carolina healthcare quality trust established; Modern
Healthcare; 2/5/09: Health Sciences South Carolina, the South
Carolina Hospital Association and Premier healthcare alliance announced that
they established the South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust to study ways
of reducing patient harm and costs while improving the general health of the
state’s residents. The three-year quality trust is a partnership of the
three organizations, with all 65 acute-care hospitals in the state planning
to participate.
Full story (login required)
S.C. hospitals partner to reduce healthcare-related infections;
Healthcare Purchasing News; 2/5/09: South Carolina’s private and
university research hospitals are banding together to identify and curb
hospital infections, the group announced Wednesday. Curbing infections could
save the state’s hospitals as much as $40 million a year and reduce the
length of stay of patients by up to 24,000 days annually, according to the
newly formed South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust.
Full
story
South Carolina hospitals to eliminate infections, reduce cost of care;
Infection Control Today; 2/4/09: In an effort to reduce avoidable
deaths, patient harm and healthcare costs, all 65 acute-care hospitals in
South Carolina have joined a collaborative aimed at eliminating preventable
healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) statewide while safely reducing
associated costs.
Full story
South Carolina program puts HAIs in the crosshairs; HealthLeaders
Media; 2/4/09: Midday today marks the launch of the South Carolina
Healthcare Quality Trust, a statewide, voluntary hospital quality
collaborative to reduce hospital-acquired infections and their associated
costs.
Full story
Group formed to investigate hospital-acquired infections; WIS-TV
(Columbia, SC); 2/4/09: Three key health groups came together
Wednesday to announce the formation of the South Carolina Healthcare Quality
Trust. The group is a collaborative effort throughout the state to see why
there are so many hospital-acquired infections.
Full story
Op-ed: University, hospital goal: Eliminate infections; The
(Columbia, SC) State; 2/4/09: This op-ed from Dr. Jay Moskowitz, CEO and president of Health Sciences South Carolina, discusses the
South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust. According to Moskowitz, "...this unique statewide partnership seeks to
eliminate preventable infections in South Carolina’s hospitals, to make them safer for patients, family
members and employees." Through this collaborative, hospitals will be able to track their improvement
against state and national benchmarks via Premier’s Performance Improvement Portal.
Full story
HAI prevention effort launched; Health Data Management; 2/4/09:
All 65 hospitals in South Carolina are collaborating in an effort to
eliminate preventable health care-associated infections and reduce costs.
The effort includes formation of an information-sharing portal to research
causes of infections and identify and promote processes for prevention.
Full
story
Healthcare Quality Trust formed to curb infections at hospitals;
Charleston (SC) Regional Business Journal; 2/4/09: Health Sciences
South Carolina, the S.C. Hospital Association and the Premier Inc. health
care alliance have announced the formation of the S.C. Healthcare Quality
Trust, a voluntary, statewide hospital and research university partnership.
The collaborative will employ research to identify causes of, and solutions
to, preventable infections and then will share the results with all 65 of
the state’s acute-care hospitals. The three partners will invest more than
$1.7 million over three years.
Full story
Lax needle use in clinics raises alarm; The Wall Street Journal;
2/4/09: This article, featuring Premier's Gina Pugliese, looks at unsafe
injection practices as one of the leading causes of infections in
doctors' offices, outpatient clinics and long term care facilities,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Full story
Data integrity: The quest for meaningful, usable data is accelerating
as a P4P surge sweeps healthcare; Healthcare Informatics; 2/09 issue:
It's hard to think of a more apt – if gruesome – "what if" example to
demonstrate the data integrity challenge. The example comes from Erica
Drazen, Sc.D., partner in the Lexington, Mass.-based Emerging Practices
division at CSC Corporation (Falls Church, Va.). "It's what I call the
diabetic foot exam example," she says.
Full story
Clinical transformation: Under pressure to alter the cost/quality
paradigm, hospital organizations are turning to IT; Healthcare Informatics;
2/09 issue: By every measure – intensifying reimbursement changes, legislative
and regulatory mandates, and media coverage – the demand on the part of
purchasers and payers for a fundamental transformation in healthcare quality
and patient safety will be agenda item number one for hospital organizations
in the years to come. And, increasingly, C-suite executives and boards are
realizing that clinical transformation is not truly possible without IT.
That puts CIOs in a position which is both enviable and daunting.
Full story
President, provider groups hail SCHIP passage; Modern Healthcare;
1/30/09: The president and provider groups alike hailed the Senate's
passage of a $32.8 billion bill to reauthorize the State Children's Health
Insurance Program. Expanding coverage "represents a major step forward in
preserving the financial health of hospitals, many of which have been
providing unsustainable levels of uncompensated care in part because of cuts
in state health insurance programs and the rise in unemployment," Blair
Childs, senior vice president of public affairs with the Premier healthcare
alliance, said in a statement.
Full story (login required)
What you didn't know about Premier's Jena Abernathy; Charlotte
eVentures Magazine; 1/09 issue: This Q&A interview with the
Charlotte, NC, Chamber of Commerce's quarterly magazine features Premier
Chief Administrative Officer Jena Abernathy.
Full story
Hospitals sign on for Premier program; Charlotte (NC) Business
Journal; 1/20/09: Twenty-seven hospitals and health systems have
joined a new Premier Inc. health-care alliance program designed to improve
supply-chain performance. Premier says its Accelerated Supply Chain Endeavor
program provides simplified purchasing processes and specially-negotiated
contract benefits for its members.
Full story
Weathering the recession; Materials Management in Healthcare;
1/15/09: This article, featuring Premier alliance member Anne Arundel Medical Center and Premier’s Mike Alkire, looks at the pressures the healthcare supply chain is facing during the economic downturn. Alkire says
Premier is willing to explore nontraditional agreements, including bundling agreements, to meet the needs of both Premier hospitals and suppliers.
Full story
Automated tools aid in infection control; Materials Management in Health
Care;
1/15/09: This article, featuring Premier alliance member St. Elizabeth Medical Center, looks at how the hospital is working to reduce
healthcare-associated infections using Premier's SafetySurveillor.
Full story
Why aren't all hospitals using electronic surveillance to catch bad
germs?; HealthLeaders Media; 1/13/09: To date only about one-third of U.S. hospitals use an electronic infection control tool, says Scott Pope, PharmD, national
director of SafetySurveillor, one such tool, at Premier Inc., in Charlotte, NC. But, that number will grow as more states implement
infection reporting mandates and the Department of Health and Human Services' five-year plan to reduce healthcare-associated infections
gets under way, Pope says.
Full story
As Obama seeks stimulus some wonder where the funds will be going;
Modern Healthcare; 1/12/09: In a letter last week, the Premier health alliance asked top congressional leaders to include health IT provisions in any
stimulus package they approve. Among other things, Premier called for the mandatory adoption of interoperability standards to
store and transmit data within an electronic health record. "Whether it's in the stimulus package or not is still an open
question," said Blair Childs, spokesman for Premier. Childs added that an investment in health IT was one of Obama's primary
campaign promises.
Full story
(subscription required)
Battling the clones; Modern Healthcare;
1/12/09: In another move to expand its green healthcare effort, Premier alliance member Catholic Healthcare West,
a 38-hospital system with facilities in Arizona, California and Nevada, announced that it has begun work to eliminate
genetically engineered sugar beet and cloned-animal meat and dairy products from its food-supply chain. This article also
features comments from Premier's Bob Juerjens regarding the importance of labeling food and ingredients consisting of
genetically engineered plants and cloned-animal products.
Full story
(subscription required)
Washington outlook: Quality push continues; Modern Healthcare;
1/12/09: This article, featuring insights from Premier's Blair Childs, discusses the outlook for the healthcare industry under the new
administration. Says Childs, "The financial pressures on healthcare are so huge, it's imperative that we increase the drive toward improving quality, which we have learned can also reduce costs."
Full story
(login required)
Premier: Put I.T. in stimulus package; Health Data Management;
1/7/09: On January 7, Premier sent a letter to the majority and minority
leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, urging lawmakers to mandate adoption
of transaction and semantic interoperability standards for the storage and
transmission of data captured in an electronic health record.
Full story
Outlook 2009: Change is coming; Modern Healthcare;
1/5/09: This article, featuring Premier's Susan DeVore and Blair Childs, discusses predicted changes in healthcare in 2009. DeVore believes Congress and President-elect Obama "are likely to back legislation creating a federally sanctioned organization that will be responsible for evaluating and comparing the efficacy and costs of similar medical devices and drugs." According to Childs, "some form of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which was introduced by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) in 2007, will be passed into law this year."
Full story
(login required)
Going green, saving green; Southtown Star (Chicago); 1/4/09: This article, featuring Premier alliance member Ingalls Memorial, looks at Ingalls'
successes as a part of the Premier SPHERE collaborative.
Full story
Lessons learned from the storm fronts; Healthcare Purchasing News;
1/09 issue: Roughly a week shy of four years after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, crisis management executives at Premier Inc. answered their final
wake-up call. Hurricane Katrina was pounding the Gulf Coast and submerging
portions of New Orleans. Hospitals quickly attracted more patients than they
had stocked supplies and available clinicians and other healthcare workers.
Full story
Bundling: the KISS method for preventing HAIs; Healthcare Purchasing News;
12/30/08: This article looks at bundling as a method for preventing healthcare associated infections, featuring comments from Judene Bartley and Gina
Pugliese, both of the Premier Safety Institute. A bundle is a collection
of best practices and processes identified by evidence-based science as
necessary to provide optimum care for patients in certain circumstances
involving particular risks to achieve the goal of improved outcomes.
Full story
Premier experts co-author American Journal of Cardiology article on
the survival benefit of patients undergoing cardiac exams; Medical News Today;
12/22/08: Experts from the Premier alliance have co-authored an article for the American Journal of Cardiology
regarding the use of ultrasounds among patients receiving cardiac care. The research for the article was based
on over 4.3 million patient discharge records from Premier’s Perspective™ database, the nation’s largest clinical and
financial healthcare database.
Full story
Action on antibiotics lacking; Modern Healthcare; 12/22/08:
This article, featuring Premier alliance members PeaceHealth, Virginia
Commonwealth University Medical Center and St. Luke's Hospital
(Chesterfield, Mo.), as well as Premier's Scott Pope, discusses how
hospitals are working to institute proper antimicrobial stewardship programs
to reduce infections.
Full
story (subscription required)
Illinois hospital expects to save big by joining purchasing
collaborative; Healthcare Finance News; 12/16/08: Riverside
Medical Center of Kankakee, Ill., expects supply savings of more than half a
million dollars by joining the Illinois Purchasing Collaborative, a program
of the Illinois Hospital Association and the Premier healthcare alliance to
reduce members' supply chain costs. "As a long time participant in IHA's
Illinois Provider Trust and a subscriber to Premier's Healthcare Informatics
division, it only made sense for us to evaluate the IPC," said Phillip
Kambic, Riverside's president and CEO.
Full story
Putting products to the test; Hospitals & Health Networks;
12/15/08: This article looks at the Premier QUEST Comparative Innovation
Program, featuring comments from Premier Chief Operating Officer Susan
DeVore and Premier Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Blair Childs.
Full story
Battling the downturn; HealthLeaders Media; 12/15/08: This article by
Premier Purchasing Partners President Mike Alkire discusses the economic
pressures that hospitals are facing today, offering suggestions as to how
they can maintain during these tough economic times. "As healthcare
professionals, we need to guide and assist care providers to ensure they get
the best value for the most important investment they have to make – the
investment in the health of our communities."
Full story
Obama pledges to pursue health IT, despite economic woes; NextGov;
12/12/08: President-elect Barack Obama vowed on Thursday to pursue the
use of health information technology aggressively, while his pick to head
the Health and Human Services Department said he viewed health IT as a key
part of the new administration's stimulus package. Premier Senior Vice
President of Public Affairs Blair Childs said he agrees with President-elect
Obama and Senator Baucus that health IT shows "tremendous promise for
improving quality and efficiency, enhancing patient safety and eliminating
costs from the health care system."
Full story
Fighting health care-associated infections; Hospitals & Health
Networks; 12/08 issue: This article by Premier Chief Operating
Officer Susan DeVore discusses guidelines to fight healthcare-associated
infections via the proper usage of antibiotics.
Full story
Get more bang from your EHR buck: Automate quality reporting; HFM
Magazine; 12/08 issue: This article by Premier Vice President Randy
Thomas looks at how healthcare organizations nationwide are implementing
electronic health records and other IT focused on improving quality and
reducing cost.
Full
story
Care to compare?; Hospitals & Health Networks; 12/08 issue:
If the term "comparative effectiveness research," doesn’t grab you, consider
this: Proponents say that if put into practice, this type of research could
help to bring the nation's health care spending under control and improve
quality at the same time. After years as little more than a talking point,
comparative effectiveness has suddenly "caught fire as an idea whose time
has come," says Premier Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Blair
Childs. "This could really change the evaluation of clinical products," says
Susan DeVore, Premier's chief operating officer. "Hospitals need this
information as soon as they can get it," she says. Researchers conducting
comparative effectiveness reviews are trying to find data on subpopulations
and include the information in their reports when it's available, says
Joseph Lau, M.D., director of Premier alliance member Tufts Medical Center’s
Evidence-based Practice Center.
Full story
Tough times force looks at supply costs; OR Manager; 12/08
issue: This article, featuring Premier Purchasing Partners President
Mike Alkire, discusses Premier's efforts to help its alliance member
hospitals during these tough economic times.
Full story (.pdf)
Hospital initiative could reduce patient mortality, increase
reliability of care, company says; CQ HealthBeat/The Commonwealth Fund;
12/6/08: Premier healthcare alliance's QUEST hospital initiative could
reduce patient mortality by 17 percent and could improve reliability of care
by 13 percent if the nationwide project obtains its goals, according to an
analysis the company released on 12/3. "Effectively, we're creating an
improvement community of hospitals," said Premier President and CEO Rick
Norling at a forum that featured panelists from Premier, the Institute for
Healthcare Improvement, Alegent Health, the Joint Commission, Inova Health
System and Vocera Communications, a wireless communication system for
hospital staff.
Full story
Sage product honored for oral care excellence; Northwest (Chicago)
Herald; 12/6/08: Premier named healthcare product manufacturer Sage
Products Inc. as one of six finalists of the QUEST Comparative Innovation
Program. Premier's QUEST Comparative Innovation Program is a collaborative
effort among care providers to improve the quality of health care. Sage's
product was selected because of its successful track record, its impact on
reducing the cost of care, ability to save lives, patient experiences, and
its effectiveness in avoiding harm.
("Full story" link no longer active)
Carolinas joins alliance to boost outcomes, cut costs; Charlotte
(NC) Business Journal; 12/5/08: Premier Inc. operates one of the
largest health-care purchasing networks and clinical databases in the nation
and has the bulk of its operations in Charlotte. Now it can say it has
landed the biggest fish in its own pond. Carolinas HealthCare System, the
third-largest public health-care system in the United States, agreed to join
Premier in October.
Full story
Premier touts quality of care effort as model for health reform;
Inside Health Policy/Inside CMS; 12/5/08: A quality of care program
developed to change the culture of the hospital delivery system by offering
a method to measure improved quality while driving down costs is being
touted by the Premier healthcare alliance as an initiative that could fold
into a comprehensive health reform plan. A broad range of stakeholders –
including the American Hospital Association, CMS and the Joint Commission –
contributed to the development of QUEST by participating in an advisory
panel, most of whom Susan DeVore, Premier chief operating officer, told
Inside CMS are still supportive of the project as it rolls out. Investing in
the effort to reform the mentality of hospitals is the most costly aspect of
QUEST, said Richard Norling, Premier president and CEO.
("Full story" link no longer active)
Improvements on mortality figures, safety predicted; Modern
Healthcare; 12/3/08: Backers of Premier's QUEST collaborative, a
national three-year hospital quality and cost improvement project, estimate
the effort could reduce hospital patient mortality by 17% and improve
reliability of care by 13%, provided its participating hospitals meet the
project's quality goals.
Full story
Groups launch hospital quality project; AHA News; 12/3/08:
Premier Inc. and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement have announced an
initiative to improve patient care quality and outcomes in 166 non-profit
hospitals in 31 states. During the three-year QUEST project, participating
hospitals will share best practices and systematically initiate efforts to
reduce mortality rates and inpatient costs while improving patient safety,
reducing healthcare-associated infections and enhancing patients' care
experience. Once concluded, Premier plans to share information on how the
hospitals improved with the health care community.
Full story
C-suite leadership key to lowering infection rates; Hospitals &
Health Networks; 12/08 issue: A study released in September by
Premier and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and
Epidemiology found that only 15 percent of infection preventionists believe
executive and physician leadership at their hospitals are engaged in system
infection control efforts. Thirty percent of those surveyed said executive
leadership was the most important resource in reducing hospital-acquired
infections. "There’s a need for the board and senior leadership to show
visible support for infection prevention programs," says Gina Pugliese, a
safety consultant for Premier. To bring down infection rates, Premier
alliance member Kettering Health Network relies on a series of standard
practices, known as a "bundle," for clinicians to follow, said Frank Perez,
president and CEO.
Full story
P4P lessons learned; Health Data Management; 12/1/08: This
article, written by Premier alliance members Sacred Heart Medical Center and
Providence Health Care, discusses successes and lessons learned as a part of
the Premier, CMS HQID project.
Full story
Election results offer promise, peril for hospitals; Healthcare
Finance News; 12/1/08: This article, featuring Premier Senior Vice
President of Public Affairs Blair Childs, looks at what hospitals can expect
from the federal government in 2009.
Full story
Knocking out resistant organisms: Supply chain and infection
preventionists team up; Healthcare Purchasing News; 12/08 issue:
Although great strides are being made in many institutions across the
country, it doesn’t mean that in all, or even most, instances resistant
organisms can be knocked totally out of commission. Why isn’t it reasonable
to believe that resistant organisms can be eradicated? Gina Pugliese, vice
president of Premier's Safety Institute, explained.
Full story
Advancing quality in the North West; Health Services Journal (UK);
11/27/08: This article, featuring Premier President and CEO Rick Norling,
discusses the UK’s Advancing Quality P4P program, modeled after the
Premier/CMS HQID project.
Full story
One-on-one with Blair Childs of Premier Inc.; Healthcare Informatics; 11/21/08:
In this exclusive interview, Premier Senior Vice President of Public
Affairs Blair Childs talks about healthcare legislation prospects in
Congress.
Full story
Premier readies product ID system ahead of mandates; Charlotte (NC) Business Journal;
11/21/08: Premier Inc. is developing a system to identify medical equipment that will increase patient safety by ensuring accuracy.
The health-care alliance, which has an operations center in Charlotte, is requiring its more than 800 suppliers and manufacturers to
mark millions of devices ranging from syringes to stents by 2012.
Full story
How activists are forcing change in green IT; Greener Computing;
11/18/08: Often, advocacy groups campaign against specific business practices – take the movement to ban BPA from
baby bottles, for instance. But when it comes to the electronics industry, non-government organizations are
attempting to shift the entire business paradigm.
Full story
Lobbying for reform; Modern Healthcare;
11/17/08: This article, featuring Premier's Blair Childs, discusses Sen. Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) comprehensive
plan to cover all Americans through public and private reforms and the inevitable resistance it will receive
from certain sectors of the healthcare industry.
Full story
(login required)
Baucus, Dingell push swift action toward universal healthcare;
Healthcare Finance News; 11/13/08: With 69 days until
President-elect Barack Obama takes office, Congressional leaders are gearing
up to make sure healthcare reform doesn't slip through the cracks this time.
This article, featuring a statement from Premier, looks at Sen. Max Baucus'
(D-Mont) efforts to reform the US healthcare system.
Full story
Newsmaker interview: G. Edwin Howe; Healthcare Finance News;
11/08 issue: In this interview, Ed Howe, retired president and founder
of Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, and former Premier board member,
discusses the effect of the economy on the healthcare industry.
Full story
What Obama means for health information technology; HealthLeaders
Media; 11/11/08: President-elect Barack Obama has made it clear that
health information technology will play a central role in his plan to
overhaul the health system. This article, featuring insights Premier Senior
Vice President of Public Affairs Blair Childs, discusses what effect the new
administration will have on healthcare IT.
Full story
The bright side of energy conservation; Materials Management in
Health Care; 11/08 issue: This article written by Premier Safety
Institute Vice President Gina Pugliese discusses the need for the
improvement of energy conservation in the healthcare industry, touching on
Premier's SPHERE initiative.
Full story
Premier honored as one of best places to work in Charlotte;
Charlotte Business Journal; 11/5/08: Premier is among 65 businesses
in the Charlotte, NC, region recognized as the area’s Best Places to Work
for 2008. This is the second consecutive year Premier has been recognized.
In improving from the 11th spot to the fifth spot, Premier was the only
large business and one of three overall companies in the area to receive the
Most Improved Award.
Full story
U.S.-based Premier demonstration project takes off in England;
FierceHealthcare; 11/3/08: Most likely, everyone is familiar with
the Premier Demonstration Project of the past four-plus years. For those who
are not: in summary, it was an opportunity for hospitals to voluntarily
report their quality data to CMS through Premier, which would then be
benchmarked against other hospitals. Now, the Northwest area of England
(think Manchester, Liverpool, etc.) has started a similar project called
Advancing Quality, with Premier leading the efforts.
Full story
Medicare won't pay for errors anymore; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel;
11/1/08: This article, featuring Premier’s Salah Qutaishat, discusses
Medicare decision to no longer fully reimburse hospitals for certain
hospital-acquired conditions and how such is affecting Wisconsin hospitals.
Full story
Q&A with Premier CIO and senior vice president Joe Pleasant: Supply
chain standards to enhance patient safety, reduce costs; Healthcare Cost
Containment; 10/08 issue: This Q&A, featuring Premier’s Joe
Pleasant, discusses Premier’s endorsement of GS1 supply chain standards and
the ensuing safety improvements.
Full story (.pdf)
Going for the gold standard; Baseline Magazine; 10/30/08:
As one of the health care industry’s largest group purchasing organizations,
Premier Purchasing Partners is responsible for evaluating products and
services and then selecting the most cost-effective solutions. Premier's
goal is to unite a fragmented, chaotic and inefficient health care system.
Seven years ago, frustrated by the lack of industry-standard product,
supplier and organization ID numbers, Premier decided to collect data from
disparate systems and standardize them based on Premier’s item master list.
Marla Weigert, group vice president, Purchasing Partners Data/Technology,
details how Premier streamlined the product information management process
and reduced the time and resources spent manually standardizing data.
Full story
Towing the line: Balancing costs, product utilization and quality of
care is possible, but it takes work; Journal of Healthcare Contracting;
10/08 issue: Not only is it possible to tie together expenses, product
utilization and clinical outcomes, it’s necessary in order to provide more
efficient, better quality patient care, according to experts. Still, it’s no
easy task. This article features Premier’s Kathy Connolly and Dawn Terry
discussing these issues.
Full
story
Tools calculate MS-DRG payments; Health Data Management;
10/27/08: Online reimbursement calculators that enable hospitals to
compare their costs to reimbursement under the Medicare Severity Diagnosis
Related Group system are available through Premier. Available for
cardiovascular, orthopedic and spine implants, the in-house developed
calculators can help reduce the number of inaccurate claims that lower
Medicare reimbursement without affecting the quality of care.
Full
story
Premier urges hospital suppliers to keep costs down in tough times;
Healthcare Finance News; 10/24/08: The Premier healthcare alliance
has issued a plea to its contracted hospital suppliers to keep prices down
during the current economic downtown. With margins that usually hover near 2
percent, hospitals have always been on the edge, even before the current
Wall Street meltdown trickles down to providers, said Mike Alkire, president
of Premier Purchasing Partners.
Full story
AHA, GPO onboard for ICD-10 implementation; Modern Healthcare;
10/22/08: The American Hospital Association and Premier joined the
American Health Information Management Association in supporting HHS’
proposal to upgrade the International Classification of Diseases coding
system, saying the codes bring with them enhanced information technology and
patient safety. “All other G-7 nations and the World Health Organization
utilize ICD-10, and until the United States follows suit, we must manually
convert our information,” Premier wrote.
Full story (login required)
Carolinas HealthCare System joins Premier purchasing group; The
Charlotte (NC) Observer; 10/21/08: Carolinas HealthCare System has
joined the Premier healthcare alliance, a partnership that will translate to
a healthier Charlotte-area community through shorter stays in the hospital,
fewer hospital re-admissions and investments in state-of-the-art
technologies and products.
Full
story
Premier CEO to step down in 2009; Healthcare Finance News;
10/16/08: Richard A. Norling will retire as president and chief
executive officer of Premier Inc., the nationwide healthcare alliance, on
June 30, 2009, the end of his current contract term.
Full story
Premier CEO to retire; Charlotte Business Journal; 10/17/08:
Richard Norling will retire as president and chief executive of Premier Inc.
on June 30, when his employment contract ends. The company hasn’t yet chosen
a successor. Norling joined Premier as chief operating officer in 1997. He
became president and CEO in 1998.
Full story
Norling to retire from Premier next summer; Modern Healthcare;
10/16/08: Richard Norling, president and chief executive officer of
Premier, said he would retire June 30, 2009, after more than a decade at the
company’s helm. A replacement has not been named. Norling, voted No. 66 on
Modern Healthcare’s list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare this
year, joined Premier in 1997, a year after the purchasing organization was
formed. As CEO, he helped steer Premier to a 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award, while growing the company to reach more than 2,000
not-for-profit hospitals and more than 53,000 healthcare sites.
Full story (login required)
Minnesota hospital uses IT to fight infection; Healthcare IT News;
10/10/08: Park Nicollet Health Services is implementing technology to
help prevent healthcare-associated infections at 426-bed Park Nicollet
Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, MN. Park Nicollet will implement the
Premier healthcare alliance's SafetySurveillor technology.
Full story
A new way to buy energy; Hospitals & Health Networks; 10/08
issue: This article, featuring Premier alliance member Covenant Health
System in Lexington, MA, looks at the reverse auction process that is part
of Premier’s SPHERE initiative.
Full story
Infusing value analysis in contracting strategies; Healthcare
Purchasing News; 10/08 issue: This article, featuring Premier
alliance member Cape Fear Valley Health System and Premier Consulting
Solutions' Tim Berkey, discusses the role of value analysis in contracting
and supply chain management.
Full
story
Blueprint needed for infection fight; HealthLeaders Media;
10/6/08: This article, featuring comment from Premier Safety Institute
Vice President Gina Pugliese, discusses the challenges in fighting HAIs. "It
would be nice to say there is a magic bullet out there, just hire this many
staff and your problem is solved, but that's not the case," said Pugliese.
Full story
Wanted: A new COO; Modern Healthcare; 10/6/08: This
article, featuring Premier alliance members Sharp HealthCare and GNYHA, as
well as Premier Vice President of Supplier Relations Dave Edwards, discusses
the hospital chief outsourcing officer and how GPOs are playing a role.
Full story
Premier warns of proprietary quality measures; Modern Healthcare; 10/1/08:
Premier is warning the Federal Trade Commission that the use of proprietary
“black boxes” to generate federally required quality-data reporting – data that
promises to stoke competition among providers by informing consumers – could
create monopolies among suppliers of quality measures and actually harm
consumers by depriving them of access to transparent information.
Full story
(login required)
Cash bonuses scheme to get Trusts to perform better;
The Whitehaven News (United Kingdom); 10/1/08:
In the United Kingdom, North Cumbria’s hospitals could get cash bonuses
for improving patient care and cutting the length of time patients spend
on wards. The West Cumberland Hospital and the Cumberland Infirmary are
two of 40 from across the North West taking part in a new healthcare
initiative. Going live in Whitehaven and Carlisle this week, bosses say
the Advancing Quality scheme will save lives and promote better patient
care. The strategic health authority is working with Premier Inc., a
company which helped pioneer a similar system in the USA.
Full story
'Superbugs' that strike the sickest patients: The Wall Street
Journal; 10/1/08: This article, with input from Premier Safety
Institute Vice President Gina Pugliese, discusses gram-negative bacteria, a
class of bacteria once thought to be fairly benign that is now emerging as a
deadly threat to the sickest and most vulnerable patients.
Full story
Life-saver plan for hospitals; WiganToday.net (Wigan, England);
9/29/08: A revolutionary health improvement scheme is to be introduced
at two Wigan, England hospitals. From October 1, the Royal Albert Edward
Infirmary and Wrightington Hospital will take part in Advancing Quality, a
three year, voluntary program which, organizers believe, will save lives and
resources. Premier Inc, a company which helped pioneer a similar system in
the American "not for profit" healthcare sector, is a partner in the scheme.
In the US, hospitals which performed well saw lower death rates, reduced
complications, fewer re-admissions and shorter lengths of stay for patients.
Full story
Cover story: Infection dejection; Modern Healthcare; 9/29/08:
This article, featuring Premier alliance member SSM Health Care and
referencing a Premier survey on healthcare-associated infections, looks
at HHS’ plan to release guidelines on infection control to improve
patient care.
Full story (login required)
Tech gap stalls P4P progress; Government Health IT; 9/26/08:
This article, featuring Premier alliance members Alegent Health, Aurora
Health Care, Billings Clinic and Palomar Pomerado Health, discusses the need
for enhanced technologies for incentive programs, such as the Premier, CMS
HQID project.
Full
story
Hospitals' cash bonus for improving care; News & Star (UK);
9/25/08:
This article discusses the UK-based NHS North West’s Advancing Quality
program, the country’s first hospital P4P program. Premier is consulting
NHS on the program, which will model the CMS, Premier HQID project.
Full story
Nationwide redesign to help prevent HAIs, deaths, and save hospitals
money; Healthcare Finance News; 9/24/08: This article looks at a
survey of infection preventionists by Premier, featuring insights from
Premier alliance member SSM Health Care and Premier Safety Institute Vice
President Gina Pugliese.
Full story
More leadership on infection control urged: survey; Modern Healthcare; 9/23/08:
More management and physician leadership is needed to improve
infection-control practices and make patient care safer, according to a
survey released by Premier and the Association for Professionals in
Infection Control and Epidemiology.
Full story (login required)
CMS value-based purchasing initiatives to grow; Modern Healthcare; 9/22/08:
Value-based purchasing initiatives by the CMS will expand in the pursuit
of quality improvement, according to an agency official. Thomas Valuck,
a physician who is medical officer and senior adviser in the CMS’ Center
for Medicare Management, said that without reining in costs, the
Medicare Part A trust fund could be depleted by 2019. Value-based
purchasing avoids unnecessary costs and focuses on quality of care, he
said. Value-based purchasing encompasses a range of pilot programs – such
as the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration, nursing home
demonstration and the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative – that have
been showing success in reducing costs and increasing quality, Valuck
said.
Full story (login required)
Hospital system saves money at online energy auction; Health
Facilities Management; 9/08 issue: This article, featuring Premier
alliance member Covenant Health Systems and Premier Safety Institute Vice
President Gina Pugliese, discusses Covenant’s savings as a part of Premier’s
SPHERE initiative climate and energy collaborative focused on reducing the
healthcare industry’s carbon footprint.
Full story
Cover story: Experiments in payment; Hospitals & Health Networks;
9/08 issue: This article, featuring Premier alliance members Gaston
Memorial Hospital, Baptist Health South Florida and Kettering Medical
Center, as well as Premier Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Blair
Childs, discusses the Premier/CMS HQID project as one of the most ambitious
current projects leading the “quiet revolution” towards payment reform in
healthcare.
Full story
Quality gains noted; national standards urged; Modern Healthcare; 9/10/08:
Some quality initiatives have made headway in improving patient care,
but more needs to be done to establish national performance standards
and promote health information technology, witnesses testified before
the Senate Finance Committee. The CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive
Demonstration Project was cited by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus
(D-Mont.) and witnesses at the hearing as an approach that’s had some
success in accelerating quality.
Full story (login required)
Experts push transparency, P4P, and healthcare IT for healthcare
reform; Healthcare Finance News; 9/10/08:
Transparency in healthcare, pay-for-performance (P4P) and healthcare IT
are among the top ways experts say the country could overhaul its
healthcare system to not only improve care, but also reduce costs. At a
Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, providers and experts from the
private sector urged the federal government to take the lead on reform.
Greg Schoen, MD, regional medical director of Fairview Northland Medical
Center in Princeton, Minn., backed pay-for-performance. Fairview
participated in the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration
project with drastic improvements in its performance.
Full
story
Commentary: Small hospital provides big lesson in quality of care; HealthLeaders Media; 9/10/08:
If you get a chance, read the testimony presented on Tuesday (Sept. 9)
to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee by Greg Schoen, MD, regional
medical director at Fairview Northland Medical Center in Princeton, MN,
located about 50 miles north of the Twin Cities. It provides a blueprint
for success for improving patient outcomes. In its first year of
participation in CMS' Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration project,
Fairview Northland found itself ranked among the bottom 10% of
participating hospitals. Within three years, after identifying and
correcting a number of problems, the 54-bed hospital was ranked among
the top hospitals in the program.
Full story
Bigger rewards – and stronger penalties – may help improve health care
quality, experts say; CQ Politics; 9/9/08:
Paying health care providers more to do quality work and insisting they
abide by a set of minimum quality standards would go a long way toward
improving the quality of medical care that patients receive, witnesses
told the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday. Among the witnesses was Greg
Schoen, regional medical director of the Fairview Northland Medical
Center in Princeton, Minn., who said his facility earned $40,445 over
three years for participating in a hospital quality incentive
demonstration operated jointly by CMS and Premier Inc.
Full story
Nonprofit hospitals aim to maintain margins; Managed Healthcare Executive; 9/08 issue:
This article, featuring insights from Premier President and CEO Richard
Norling, discusses how nonprofit hospitals are dealing with tough
economic times. According to Norling, there are several ways that
nonprofit hospitals can improve their financial picture, including
linking cost, safety and quality through the implementation of
evidence-based medicine.
Full story
10 keys to an ophthalmic safety knife conversion; Outpatient
Surgery Magazine; 9/08 issue: This article, featuring insights from
Premier Safety Institute Vice President Gina Pugliese, looks at sharps
safety in the hospital setting.
Full story (registration required)
Curbing antibiotic use in war on 'superbugs'; The Wall Street
Journal; 9/3/08: This article looks at Premier’s SafetySurveillor as
one of the tools hospitals are using to win the war against infections and
features insights from Premier alliance member University of Wisconsin
Hospital and Clinics.
Full story
Inflation frustration; Modern Healthcare; 9/1/08:
Higher prices for raw materials have begun to hit the cost of health
products, and GPOs are feeling the pressure, according to Modern
Healthcare’s annual GPO survey.
Full story (login required)
Demand for oncology pharmacists growing as key role is increasingly
valued; Oncology Times; 8/25/08: This article, featuring Premier
alliance members H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Johns Hopkins Hospital, as
well as Premier Senior Director of Pharmacy Affairs Fred Pane, looks at the
role of oncology pharmacists regarding cancer care and the costs associated
with it.
Full story
Premier Breakthroughs Conference: Quality program yields better
patient care; The Journal of Healthcare Contracting; 8/08 issue:
This article looks at Premier’s 2008 Breakthroughs Conference, highlighting
winners of Premier’s Supply Chain awards. It also features an interview with
Premier Purchasing Partners President Mike Alkire regarding standardization
of clinical-preference products.
Full story
Strength in numbers: Smaller hospitals and IDNs find market strength
by forming coalitions; The Journal of Healthcare Contracting; 8/08
issue: This article, featuring WNC Health Network and Premier’s Sue
Casey and Krista Marshall, discusses how smaller hospitals and IDNs find
market strength by forming coalitions such as the WNC Health Network.
Full story
Op-ed: It’s flawed, but we can’t find it; Modern Healthcare;
8/25/08:
Alan Yordy, president and chief mission officer of Premier alliance
member PeaceHealth, discusses the importance of implementing
industry-advocated GS1 standards to foster a safer, more efficient
supply chain.
Full story (subscription required)
Web of power; Modern Healthcare; 8/25/08:
Modern Healthcare has announced its annual list of the 100 Most Powerful
People in Healthcare. This year's list includes Premier President and
CEO Richard Norling, as well as a number of Premier alliance members.
Full story (login required)
Medicare posts hospital death rates; The Charlotte (NC) Observer; 8/22/08:
To help consumers make better health care decisions, Medicare has for
the first time published hospital-by-hospital death rates for patients
treated for three common conditions: heart attack, heart failure and
pneumonia. “It's getting a lot better,” said Christine Van Dusen, a
quality measures specialist with Premier. “They're making an effort. But
you don't want to look at just mortality rates to make any determination
of the quality of care that a hospital is providing. That's one part of
it. But you have to look at all of it.”
Full
story
Premier launches health data privacy tool; Healthcare IT News;
8/15/08: Premier Insurance Management Services, Inc., a for-profit
corporation wholly owned by the Premier healthcare alliance, has launched a
new data privacy and network risk liability product for healthcare
facilities. Available to Premier members, the product integrates first- and
third-party coverage into a single convenient policy form and offers
coverage that's typically excluded from other liability insurance policies.
Full story
Proactive planning for sharps safety; Materials Management in Health Care; 8/08 issue:
This article, co-authored by the Premier Safety Institute’s Judene
Bartley, discusses steps hospital professional can take to reduce sharps
injuries.
Full story
Premier’s Robert Dowdy featured as The Risk Retention Reporter
executive of the month for August 2008; The Risk Retention Reporter;
8/08 issue: As president of both American Excess Insurance Exchange,
Risk Retention Group (AEIX), a Vermont-domiciled RRG, and Premier Insurance
Management Services, Inc., its insurance servicing affiliate, Robert Dowdy
has learned that effective competition and peer pressure enhance the desire
for hospital systems to pursue patient safety and quality goals, resulting
in strengthened health care risk management.
Full story (.pdf)
New rules drawing fire; Modern Healthcare; 8/11/08: This
article, featuring Premier’s Blair Childs and Christine Van Dusen, discusses
CMS’ new quality-improvement provisions in the final acute-care inpatient
prospective payment system rule for 2009.
Full story (subscription required)
Standards practice; Modern Healthcare; 8/11/08: This
article, featuring Premier’s Joe Pleasant, looks at how group purchasing
organizations are making a push for hospitals and their suppliers to adopt
universal standards for identifying and tracking medical products across the
supply chain. Premier was the first GPO to endorse such standards.
Full story (subscription required)
Premier criticizes proprietary approaches; Healthcare Finance News;
8/08 issue: This article looks at Premier’s Quality Improvement
Committee, representing 17 hospitals and healthcare systems comprising more
than 100 hospitals, and its stance that quality reporting requiring
proprietary information, tools or methodology is too expensive and sets a
bad precedent.
Full
story
Cover story: Turning data into improved care; Healthcare
Informatics; 8/08 issue: A number of healthcare facilities are
working to transform terabytes of raw data into a guide for better clinical
care. This article features Premier alliance members Gaston Memorial
Hospital and Alegent Health, as well as Stephanie Alexander, Premier's
senior vice president for Healthcare Informatics.
Full story
A larger serving of greens; Modern Healthcare; 8/4/08: This
article, which features Premier member Catholic Healthcare West and Premier
Clinical Nutrition Manager Debby Kasper, looks at how hospitals are seeking
a food supply that's healthier for patients, as well as the planet.
Full story (login required)
Stick up for safety; Healthcare Purchasing News; 8/08 issue:
It’s been eight years now since Congress passed the 2000 Needlestick
Safety and Prevention Act, and experts argue that there is still
improvement to be made in the area of sharps safety. "We’re pretty far
out from the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act and OSHA’s revision
of their standard, but I think that we still have not crossed the finish
line on getting safety to replace traditional devices in all
applications, in all situations," observed Gina Pugliese, vice
president, Premier Safety Institute.
Full story
Premier tells medical device makers to adopt GS1 supply chain
standards; RFID Journal; 7/30/08: This article, featuring Premier
CIO Joe Pleasant, focuses on Premier's endorsement of having medical devices
tracked by Global Trade Item Number and Global Location Number, which could
make it easier for the healthcare sector to implement RFID technology.
Full
story
Reconciling differences; Modern Healthcare; 7/28/08: This
article, featuring Premier CIO Joe Pleasant, discusses Premier’s endorsement
of GS1 standards and general collaboration with the healthcare supply chain.
Full story (subscription required)
New era of preventing birth-related deaths; Materials Management in
Health Care; 7/08 issue: This article discusses the Premier
Perinatal Safety Initiative and general safety in the OB suite, featuring
insights from IHI’s Maureen Bisognano.
Full story
Device identification, synchronization can boost patient safety;
Healthcare's Most Wired Magazine; 7/22/08: This article by Premier
CIO Joe Pleasant discusses the importance of standardization in the
healthcare supply chain to save time, money and most importantly, patients’
lives.
Full story
As consumers take charge, hospitals see changes ahead; Healthcare
Finance News; 7/08 issue: Radical changes in healthcare will not put
hospitals at the center of the healthcare delivery system – instead moving
the focus of care further upstream. That’s a positive change, albeit a scary
one for most hospitals, and one that facilities will need to make, said
executives of several top hospitals in an exclusive roundtable discussion at
the annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition sponsored by Premier Inc.
This article features Premier alliance members Methodist Medical Center of
Illinois and Summa Health, as well as Premier COO Susan DeVore
Full story
Greenhouse gas laws leave hospitals up in the air; Healthcare
Finance News; 7/08 issue: This article looks at new restrictions
that the government is placing on the healthcare industry to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, featuring insights from Premier Safety Institute
Vice President Gina Pugliese.
Full story
Hunting down HAI: Automated tracking technology; Healthcare Purchasing News; 7/08 issue:
This article looks at automated infection control surveillance and features
Premier's SafetySurveillor tool, as well as Premier’s Jeff Petry and Salah
Qutaishat.
Full
story
Op-ed: To protect little bundles of joy, we should try bundling care
processes to reduce avoidable childbirth injuries; Modern Healthcare;
6/30/08: "Nowhere is reliable, evidence-based care more important than
in the obstetrics suite. Yet infants in the U.S. experience nearly three
birth injuries for every 1,000 deliveries, many of which are preventable. To
address this troubling issue, 16 hospitals from 12 states have collaborated
with leading perinatal-care experts and the Premier healthcare alliance in
the Perinatal Safety Initiative, a project designed to achieve consistent
delivery of evidence-based care with the goal of eliminating preventable
birth-related injuries and deaths," writes Premier COO Susan DeVore.
Full story (subscription required)
Infectious dilemma; Modern Healthcare; 6/30/08: Hospitals
across the country are devising uncertain battle plans for a payer-mandated
war on healthcare-associated infections. Premier decided in 2006 to get into
the business by acquiring the Cereplex system, which it renamed
SafetySurveillor, and has experienced rapid adoption of the system by both
member and nonmember hospitals, said Jeff Petry, vice president of Premier
Healthcare Informatics.
Full story (login required)
Worldy dealing; Modern Healthcare; 6/30/08: A small but
growing number of U.S. healthcare systems are creating international
partnerships that capitalize on America's reputation as a
healthcare-standards bearer. To that end, Premier will use a
pay-for-performance program it is building for England's North West
Strategic Health Authority to launch a clinical goal-sharing initiative
between U.S. and British hospital administrators. The clinical-performance
project begins in October, but Premier has hosted monthly calls since
January between U.S. and British hospital officials in preparation of the
launch.
Full story (subscription required)
Hospitals part of experiment; The (Lakeland, FL) Ledger;
6/29/08: Perform well and get rewards. Score low and face the
consequences. Winter Haven and South Florida Baptist hospitals encountered
that carrot-or-stick approach during a demonstration project that may lead
to nationwide changes in how Medicare pays hospitals. They were among more
than 250 hospitals in a pay-for-performance program the federal government
did with members of Premier healthcare alliance. Premier released the latest
data from the project this month.
Full story
Commentary: CAMC is providing top-notch health care; Charleston
(WV) Daily Mail; 6/25/08:
An op-ed from Dr. Glenn Crotty, chief operating officer of Premier
alliance member Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC), discusses CAMC's
overall successes, as well as its success in the Premier, CMS Hospital
Quality Incentive Demonstration project.
Full
story
Kettering Medical Center earns Medicare reimbursement bonus; Dayton (OH) Daily News; 6/23/08:
Kettering Medical Center earned a $175,701 bonus in Medicare
reimbursements for hip- and knee-replacement surgeries by meeting
quality criteria, the most of more than 250 U.S. hospitals in a
demonstration project for the second consecutive year. KMC-Sycamore
earned an extra $15,283 for its top-10-percent ranking for pneumonia
care in the same CMS/Premier pay-for-performance program.
Full story
Island hospitals and doctors honored in study and ranking; Staten Island Advance; 6/23/08:
Staten Islanders have some of the best health care in the country
available to them according to accolades recently bestowed upon Staten
Island University Hospital and Richmond University Medical Center. SIUH
received high praise from a new study, the CMS/Premier
pay-for-performance project, ranking first in New York and sixth in the
country in five quality care indicators. The Heart Institute, jointly
owned by SIUH and RUMC, earned particular recognition, receiving the
second highest rank in the country for coronary artery bypass graft
surgery.
Full story
CMS pays out $7 million; Modern Healthcare; 6/23/08:
Top performers in the third year of the CMS, Premier hospital
pay-for-performance demonstration project said that the key to success
has been getting all clinical staff on board with the idea, and showing
a strong commitment to quality at the top.
Full story (login required)
Health-care cooks from four states at MTI for culinary clinic; The (Mitchell, SD) Daily Republic;
6/18/08:
This story discusses Premier’s Culinary Clinic stop in South Dakota and
features comments from alliance member Avera Queen of Peace Hospital, as
well as Debby Kasper, manager of clinical nutrition for Premier.
Full story (login required)
Mon, WVUH tops in care project; The Dominion Post (WV)/West Virginia Hospital
Association; 6/18/08:
Mon General and WVU Hospitals received high rankings in a Hospital
Quality Incentive Demonstration project conducted by Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services and Premier health care alliance.
Full story
Aurora hospitals stand out; They improved over time in Medicare study;
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; 6/18/08:
More than four years ago, Aurora Health Care signed up for a project
based on a radical concept. Medicare would pay hospitals bonuses tied to
the quality of patient care, and how the hospitals performed would be
publicly disclosed. Aurora's hospitals overall started in the middle of
the pack. Now four of them are standouts, and all of them are strong
performers.
Full story
Medicare awards nearly $25M in hospital P4P pilot;
Healthcare IT News; 6/18/08:
A pay-for-performance project has resulted in a 15.8 percent boost in
quality over three years at 250 hospitals across the country, the
Premier healthcare alliance reported Tuesday. The Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services awarded nearly $25 million under the joint initiative
with Premier.
Full story
South Miami Hospital rewarded for its care; Miami Herald; 6/17/08:
South Miami Hospital has received the highest total award in Florida in
the Premier/CMS HQID project and was the only hospital in the state to
receive awards in four clinical areas.
Full
story
CMS awards $7 million in P4P project; Modern Healthcare; 6/17/08:
The CMS is awarding $7 million to 112 top-performing hospitals in the
third year of its pay-for-performance project with Premier, concluding
that results show substantial and continual improvement among the 250
participating hospitals in 36 states.
Full story (login required)
Online auction designed to lower hospitals’ energy costs; Premier
program might lead to healthy savings; San Diego Business Journal;
6/16/08: Hospitals are notorious energy users, running lights all day
and night, using high-powered equipment, and keeping operating rooms cool.
But energy management initiatives often take a back seat to more pressing
medical concerns, such as patient care and equipment needs. Premier's new
energy initiative aimed at helping hospitals cut their energy costs between
6 percent and 12 percent is designed to change the status quo.
Full story
Frist says health care reform unlikely in next four years; The City
Paper (Nashville, TN); 6/13/08: Former Tennessee Senator Bill Frist
told a group of hospital officials on Friday that systemic health care
reform is not likely to happen under the next president. Frist, a Republican
and the former Senate Majority Leader until his retirement from the Senate
in 2006, spoke to an annual conference of Premier Inc. He was joined by
another former senator, Democrat Bill Bradley, for a question and answer
session.
FFull
story
Premier healthcare alliance opposes part of CMS reporting proposal; HealthLeaders
Media; 6/12/08:
Looking to prevent a significant labor and cost burden on America's hospitals,
CEOs from 17 hospitals and health systems have sent a letter to the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services, strongly objecting to some of the required date
reporting included in the 2009 proposed Inpatient Prospective Payment System
rule. The 17 CEOs represent more than 100 hospitals – all members of the Premier
healthcare alliance.
Full story
Proposed doc-pay boost hailed; quality steps urged; Modern
Healthcare; 6/9/08: Providers applauded the payment boosts in Senate
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ Medicare reform bill, but thought
more could have been done on quality measures. The bill includes many
important provisions to help hospitals better serve patients, particularly
in vulnerable rural areas, Blair Childs, senior vice president of public
affairs with the Premier healthcare alliance, said in a written statement.
However, Childs said he hoped eventually to see the inclusion of a
“well-designed Medicare hospital value-based purchasing program. We also
anticipate seeing provisions addressing quality incentives in any future
bipartisan compromise moving forward.”
Full story (login required)
National safety effort targets perinatal injuries; American Medical
News; 6/16/08 issue: Improved doctor-nurse communication and strict
adherence to guideline-based care "bundles" can eliminate preventable birth
trauma, say project leaders of Premier's Perinatal Safety Initiative. This
article features Premier COO Susan DeVore, as well as alliance members
Kettering Health Network and Aurora West Allis Medical Center.
Full
story
Cover story: Good is never enough for P4P; Hospital & Health
Networks; 6/6/08: This article looks at the first three years of the
Premier, CMS HQID project, featuring insights from Premier Senior Vice
President Stephanie Alexander, along with alliance members Fairview Health
Services, Saint Vincent Health System, Aurora Health Care and Hackensack
University Medical Center.
Full story
Alliance scores big savings: Oregon non-profit hospitals announce $32
million in savings for 2007; ADVANCE for Healthcare Executives; 5/08 issue:
With the state of the economy at the forefront of everybody's mind,
every industry, including health care, is looking for ways to cut costs.
A group of Oregon hospitals found one solution by adhering to the
best-practices model. They have joined the Premier healthcare alliance
to examine what actions other successful hospitals have taken to save
money and maintain or improve their customers' health care experiences.
Through this alliance, 11 non-profit Oregon hospitals generated nearly
$32 million in savings in 2007, and more than $123 million since 2000.
The savings have been reinvested to improve the health of Oregon's
communities.
Full story
The rise of foreign agents; Modern Healthcare; 5/26/08:
This article, featuring comments Premier and members GNYHA and Baptist
Health South Florida, discusses costs and safety related to offshoring
of medical supplies.
Full story
Premier launches initiative to reduce energy costs for healthcare
industry; Healthcare Finance News; 5/22/08:
The Premier healthcare alliance has launched an initiative to address
energy costs by increasing the use of renewable energy and reducing the
industry's carbon footprint.
Full
story
For hospitals, it’s not easy being green; The Wall Street Journal health blog; 5/21/08:
This article spotlights Premier's new SPHERE initiative, aimed at
reducing the healthcare industry's carbon footprint, featuring insights
from Premier Safety Institute Vice President Gina Pugliese.
Full story
Baystate Medical Center discusses participation in Premier Perinatal
Safety Initiative; ABC-TV (Springfield, MA); 5/16/08: This video
clip features representatives from Premier alliance member Baystate Medical
Center discussing the Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative.
Video (.wmv file)
Baystate joining group to assist in childbirth care; The (Springfield, MA) Reminder; 5/15/08:
Premier alliance member Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA, has
joined 15 other Premier alliance hospitals in a national initiative to
eliminate preventable harm to babies and mothers in late pregnancy and
during the labor and delivery process.
Full story
Quality is more than a simple buzzword; Healthcare Finance News; 5/08 issue:
This article looks at the multiple definitions of quality, featuring
insights from Premier's Stephanie Alexander and Blair Childs.
Full
story
Hospitals will use IT to reduce birth injuries and deaths; InformationWeek; 5/15/08:
This article looks at the IT aspect of the Premier Perinatal Safety
Initiative, featuring insights from Kettering Health Care and Premier.
Full story
Area hospitals join effort to seek safer start for newborns; (Fort Worth, TX) Star-Telegram; 5/15/08:
A safety initiative being introduced at two North Texas hospitals could
eliminate preventable injuries and deaths among newborns nationwide.
Harris Methodist Fort Worth and Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas are the
only two hospitals in Texas to participate in an initiative designed to
change the way high-risk pregnancies are treated in the United States.
The 21-month Premier Perinatal Safety Initiative is designed to improve
safety, increase teamwork and enhance communication.
Full story
Hospital staffs train for safe delivery of babies; USA Today; 5/15/08:
Sixteen hospitals from the Premier healthcare alliance are leading a new
effort to reduce birth injuries, and have committed to following a set
of guidelines that are proven to reduce harm during the birthing
process. This article features insight from alliance members Aurora
Health Care and Texas Health Resources, along with Premier’s Susan
DeVore and Kathy Connolly.
Full story
Summa joins new perinatal initiative; Akron (OH) Beacon Journal; 5/15/08:
Premier alliance member Summa Health System is among 16 hospitals
nationwide trying to give birth to national standards that could make
labor and delivery safer for some newborns and their mothers. This
article features insights from Summa, along with Kettering Health
Network and Premier.
Full story
Data analysis generates savings at hospitals, practices; Charlotte Business Journal; 5/9/08:
This article, featuring Premier COO Susan DeVore and alliance member
Cleveland County HealthCare System, looks at how hospitals are cutting
costs without affecting patient care, using products such as Premier's
OperationsAdvisor.
Full story
Efforts growing to raise the bar on healthcare quality; Healthcare Finance News; 5/1/08:
This article by Premier President and CEO Rick Norling discusses a
recent Premier analysis of the Premier, CMS HQID project, and touches on
the importance of an appropriate value-based purchasing program.
Full
story
Road to value; The American Hospital Association; 4/23/08:
This interview, part of the AHA’s Quality Center executive interview series,
features Premier COO Susan DeVore discussing today’s quality landscape.
Full story
QUEST launches supplier improvement program; Digital Healthcare & Productivity; 4/22/08:
Premier recently kicked off the QUEST Supplier Innovation Program aimed
at testing and evaluating new technologies. The idea is to integrate
suppliers into its existing QUEST performance initiative. The program,
which launched on April 15, will be open to any interested suppliers.
Full story
The big picture; Journal of Healthcare Contracting; 4/08 issue:
This article looks at various aspects of patient safety and features
Premier’s Gina Pugliese, as well as Premier’s SafetySurveillor Web-based
tool used to detect and alert staff of healthcare-associated infections.
Full story
Patients generally pleased with hospital care; American Medical
News; 4/21/08 issue: This article, featuring insight from Premier's
Blair Childs, looks at a recent study suggesting that patients are pleased
with the quality of care they receive in hospitals.
Full
story
Why generic injectables are taking center stage; Drug Topics;
4/14/08: Generic injectable products are coming into the market. This
article details the flood of new entrants, featuring comments from Premier's
Fred Pane, senior director of Pharmacy Affairs.
Full story
WellPoint joins 'never' crusade; Modern Healthcare; 4/7/08:
This article, featuring Premier's Gina Pugliese, discusses insurer
WellPoint’s decision to stop paying for medical errors that are the most
preventable.
Full story (subscription required)
Coalition calls on FDA to act on medical-device ID scheme;
Government Health IT; 4/2/08: This article features Premier's Blair
Childs discussing the Food and Drug Administration's proposed rule and
timeline for setting up a mandatory unique identification system for medical
devices.
Full story
Weighing glove options: A balance of safety, comfort and costs;
Healthcare Purchasing News; 4/08 issue: This article looks at the
various options in selecting a proper surgical glove, featuring comments
from Premier Safety Institute Vice President Gina Pugliese.
Full
story
CMS Web site gives consumers more buying data; Healthcare Finance
News; 3/31/08:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Friday updated the
Hospital Compare Web site to give consumers more information about their
hospitals. "The Premier healthcare alliance commends CMS and HHS for
taking steps to make information, such as patient satisfaction, more
readily available to the public through its Hospital Compare consumer
Web site," said Blair Childs, Premier's senior vice president of public
affairs. "Premier (has) learned that a combination of publicly reported
information and financial incentives drive quality improvement. Premier
believes that patient satisfaction is a very important part of the
healthcare experience and supports CMS's actions to make this
information publicly available."
Full
story
Clinicians on board for supply chain redesign; Repertoire; 3/08
issue: This article discusses the role of clinicians in the supply chain
and features Chris Meyers Janda, vice president for supply chain at Fairview
Health Services, a Premier alliance member.
Full story
Healthcare: Getting what you pay for; Hospitals & Health Networks; 3/08
issue: "Solving our nation's health care conundrum can be as perplexing
as it is troubling. Our goal must be to improve quality while safely
reducing costs. What is inspiring and encouraging is that hospitals are
fixing health care from the inside by uniting to attain this goal. While
progress is being made, important reforms must be implemented to ensure this
progress continues in the right direction," writes Premier Chief Operating
Officer Susan DeVore in this editorial article.
Full story
Never land; Trustee Magazine; 3/08 issue:
This article, featuring Premier Safety Institute Vice President Gina Pugliese, looks at Medicare’s plan to
reduce payment to hospitals for certain events, as well as what hospitals are
doing to prepare for this ruling.
Full story
Progressive pilots; Materials Management in Health Care; 3/08
issue:
This Q&A, featuring Premier Senior Vice President and Chief Information
Officer Joe Pleasant, discusses the Global Data
Synchronization Network pilot, which was recently introduced to the
healthcare industry, suggesting that data synchronization within the healthcare
supply chain is possible.
Full story
Walla Walla hospital chosen for congressional recognition;
Tri-City (WA) Herald; 3/17/08:
St. Mary Medical Center in Walla Walla, WA, will be recognized by the
U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday for its 2007 achievements in
providing patients affordable rates, few complications and low mortality
rates. St. Mary was ranked among the top 1 percent of hospitals
nationwide for providing exceptional patient care by Premier Inc., one
of the largest health care alliances in the U.S.
Full story
Cover story: Never pay never again; Modern Healthcare; 3/10/08:
This article looks at what hospitals are doing, including participating
in Premier's QUEST initiative, to prepare for CMS' IPPS ruling in
October of 2008. Representatives from Texas health Resources, Summa
Health System, Kettering Medical Center and Premier are quoted.
Full story (login required)
Caution urged on CMS' value-based purchasing; Modern Healthcare; 3/10/08:
At a roundtable last week hosted by the Senate Finance Committee, major
healthcare provider groups asked the CMS to proceed with caution on its proposal
to reimburse hospitals based on quality of care, known as value-based
purchasing. “If the short-term focus is to try to reduce Medicare spending, as
opposed to a longer-term focus on improving quality and achieving cost
reductions,” value-based purchasing will lose credibility among providers, said
Richard Norling, president and chief executive officer of Premier.
Full story (login required)
Johns Hopkins nursing program wins national honor; NurseWeek; 3/10/08:
The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing birth companions program is one
of only six organizations nationally to receive the 16th annual Monroe E. Trout
Premier Cares Award. The award, which is sponsored by Premier Inc., honors
efforts by nonprofit organizations to improve access to health care for the
underserved.
Full story
MSHA installs extra 'eyes' in hospitals; Johnson City (TN) Press; 3/8/08:
Mountain States Health Alliance officials have enlisted the help of
Premier's SafetySurveillor to help fight hospitals infections and keep
track of operations in five of its hospitals.
Full story
Hospitals boost infection surveillance; Health Data Management; 3/7/08:
Mountain States Health Alliance is implementing Web-hosted infection
surveillance software in five of its 14 hospitals. The Johnson City, TN-based
delivery system is using the SafetySurveillor software from Premier Inc.
Full story
Spend analytics tool saves hospital $2 million;
Healthcare Finance News; 3/6/08:
Officials at Alamance Regional Medical Center in Burlington, NC, report they were able to save $2
million on supplies last year by using Premier’s SpendAdvisor spending analytics
tool that allowed physicians to identify savings opportunities.
Full story
National Quality Forum ups performance ante; Modern Healthcare;
3/4/08: This article discusses the possible addition of performance
measures by the National Quality Forum and features comments from Premier's
Richard Bankowitz. If endorsed, the measures will then be considered
performance standards and used to measure and compare the quality of care
delivered at hospitals across the nation.
Full story (login required)
CMS, state mandates tap Web sites, IT systems to cut infections;
iHealthBeat; 2/21/08: Hospitals, as well as state and federal
initiatives, are targeting hospital-acquired infections with a common goal:
reducing errors to save patients' lives. The overarching goal of all of
these initiatives is to entirely eliminate preventable hospital-acquired
infections. And there is "evidence that it's achievable" based on a December
2006 study in the New England Journal of Medicine on reducing
catheter-related bloodstream infections, according to Salah Qutaishat,
epidemiologist and director of Infection Prevention and Control for Premier.
Full story
How green are you? Healthcare providers adding eco-friendly buying to
their routine; Healthcare Purchasing News; 3/08 issue: This
article, featuring the Premier Safety Institute's Gina Pugliese and Premier
member Catholic Healthcare West, discusses how a growing spate of healthcare
organizations are getting serious about environmentally conscious
purchasing, in some cases stressing cultural and social responsibility in
the same breath as pricing, features and benefits.
Full story
Study shows EMR, quality connection still weak; Modern Healthcare;
2/26/08: The jury is still out on whether electronic medical records
directly improve quality in healthcare facilities, although EMRs might help
lead to shorter patient stays, according to research presented at the
Healthcare Information Management Systems Society annual meeting in Orlando,
Fla. In a partnership with HIMSS Analytics, Premier studied the correlation
between quality and efficiency metrics and EMR adoption rates in hospitals.
Full story (login required)
Clinical pharmacists advance into all areas of medical treatment; Drug Topics; 2/25/08:
This article looks at the role of hospital pharmacists as they continue
to advance into all areas of medical treatment and features Premier
members Homestead Hospital and Avera McKennan Hospital, as well as
Premier's Scott Pope.
Full story
GS1 Healthcare US helps push data standards for industry; Materials
Management in Health Care; 2/08 issue: The health care industry is
one of the last to adopt universal product standards. But the industry is
catching up in a hurry, according to long-time standards advocate, Joe
Pleasant, Premier's chief information officer. "Better late than never" may
well be the sentiment when a group of health care standards advocates
convenes for the first time in March.
Full story
Mercy Iowa City Hospital saves thousands of dollars by revamping
procedure packs; Materials Management in Health Care; 2/08 issue:
Procedure packs can help save staff time and improve a hospital’s bottom
line when they contain only necessary supplies. Rethinking the composition
of procedure packs can reveal large savings opportunities, as Mercy Iowa
City Hospital found after a yearlong review of supply use in its cardiac
catheterization laboratory. Mercy was one of 15 hospitals participating in
the most recent Collaborative Breakthrough Series sponsored by Premier.
Full story
Aurora finds savings in health quality project; The Business Journal of Milwaukee; 2/22/08:
Aurora Health Care's participation in the Premier, Medicare P4P
demonstration project helped the Milwaukee-based hospital system save
$3.5 million in treating certain medical conditions. "It has been really
transformative in terms of quality and safety for all of our patients,"
Dr. Nick Turkal said of Aurora's participation in the project, which
involved all 12 of Aurora's hospitals.
Full story
Bonus bucks in medicine; The San Diego Union-Tribune; 2/24/08:
This article examines the Premier, Medicare P4P demonstration project,
featuring project participant Palomar Medical Center. The article also
quotes Stephanie Alexander, who leads Premier's Healthcare Informatics
unit; and Evan Benjamin vice president of healthcare quality for Premier
member Baystate Health.
Full story
Hidden hazard: Hospitals target lurking latex; The Wall Street
Journal; 2/20/08: Amid mounting concern about allergic reactions,
many hospitals are trying to eliminate latex. However, patients still need
to be vigilant: the material is found in so many products, it's easy to miss
items that contain trace amounts. The push to cut out latex has accelerated
in the past year. The U.S. military is calling for latex-free products in a
number of new contracts for its medical facilities, and Premier Inc., a
large hospital purchasing cooperative, is issuing the group-purchasing
industry's most comprehensive latex-free catalog.
Full story
Latest American export: Pay for performance; Psychiatric News;
2/1/08: The pay-for-performance concept, which is making inroads
throughout the United States, has also made a leap "across the pond" to
England. First family practitioners there were affected. Now hospitals are
as well. The North West Strategic Health Authority, which is part of
England's National Health Service, has commissioned Premier to implement a
P4P demonstration project in hospitals and other health-care sites in
northwest England.
Full story
Hospital P4P improves care, lowers costs and saves lives, study shows;
Healthcare Finance News; 2/4/08: Premier Inc. has announced the
results of a study on Medicare hospital pay-for-performance, revealing
improved quality of care, lower costs and declining patient mortality rates.
Full
story
Medicare bonus program also pays off with knowledge; The
(Springfield, IL) State Journal Register; 2/3/08: This article looks
at Memorial Medical Center's efforts in the Premier, CMS HQID P4P project.
("Full story" link no longer active)
Baystate official notes keys to success; The (Springfield, MA)
Republican; 2/1/08:
Evan Benjamin, MD, FACP, chief quality officer at Baystate Medical
Center in Springfield, MA, told a national forum at a Premier event
yesterday that transparency at hospitals is one of the most important
factors in promoting safer and better hospital care.
Full story
Premier cites gains under CMS P4P initiative; Modern Healthcare;
2/1/08: Hospital costs and mortality rates are declining under a CMS
pay-for-performance project, according to an analysis released by the
Premier healthcare alliance. The Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration
project was launched by the alliance and the CMS in 2003 to find out if
economic incentives improve inpatient care at hospitals. Apparently, they
do.
Full story (login required)
Small incentives to hospitals could pay big quality dividends; The
Wall Street Journal health blog; 1/31/08: Could tying even tiny
amounts of hospitals’ reimbursement to clinical performance save 70,000
lives and $4.5 billion a year? That’s today’s bold projection from Premier
Inc., a hospital group that has been running Medicare’s “pay for
performance” pilot project. Premier says the
analysis it’s releasing today shows great results.
Full story
Beyond the financial rewards of pay-for-performance; HealthLeaders
Media; 1/21/08: This article looks at pay-for-performance, citing
the Premier 2006 Performance Pays study.
Full story
Organizations large and small strive for excellence; San Diego
Business Journal; 1/21/08: This article looks at why healthcare
organizations value the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. "There's a
whole focus on excellence, not trends," said Rick Norling, chief executive
officer and president of Premier Inc. "They're looking at best practices …
They find the benchmark. They're always pushing us to get better and
better." Premier received the award in 2006.
Full story
Supply chain tool creates healthy data for hospitals; Business
Intelligence Journal, Volume 12, Number 4; 1/08 issue: This article
takes an in-depth look at Premier's SpendAdvisor spend-management decision
making tool that is helping member hospitals simplify the spending contract
management process, resulting in saving millions of dollars.
Full story (.pdf)
Cover story: Banking on data analytics; Materials Management in
Health Care; 1/08 issue: This article, featuring Premier members
Summa (on the cover), GNYHA, Mississippi Baptist Health System and Child
Health Corporation of America, discusses how more materials managers are
turning to data analytics software to help them make the most of their
existing data and to aid them in creating a healthier bottom line.
Full story
Transforming healthcare; Healthcare Exec; 1/08 issue: This
article discusses Premier’s efforts to transform the healthcare system and
features an extensive interview with Premier COO Susan DeVore.
Full story
Teaming up; The Journal of Healthcare Contracting; 12/07 issue:
This article looks at the Colonial Regional Alliance and how it came to be
with guidance from Premier. "Premier is the glue that holds the organization
together," explains John Derr, director of materials management, Washington
County Health System.
Full
story
An industry left to its own devices?; Materials Management in
Health Care; 12/07 issue: Premier's Mike Alkire provides valuable
insight into what could come of orthopedic vendor-hospital relationships and
how changes could affect materials management.
Full story
Cover story: High-risk proposition; Modern Healthcare; 12/3/07:
This article discusses Medicare's plan for value-based purchasing and
features insights from Alegent Health and Hackensack University Medical
Center, as well as Premier's Blair Childs.
Full story (login required)
A call to action: Eliminating healthcare-associated infections;
Infection Control Today; 11/27/07: This article from Premier’s Dan
Peterson and Salah Qutaishat discusses what hospitals can do to eliminate
healthcare-associated infections.
Full story
Cover story: IT on infection detail; Healthcare IT News; 11/07
issue: This article discusses a recent survey by Premier regarding
healthcare-associated infections and what hospitals are doing to combat
them.
Full story
Medicare proposes hospital reimbursement overhaul; Modern
Healthcare and The Wall Street Journal; 11/27/07: On November 26,
the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed to Congress a plan to
implement nationally Value Based Purchasing, also known as
pay-for-performance. Premier's Blair Childs, senior vice president of public
affairs, and Stacey Brown, vice president of communications and public
relations, were quoted in articles published in Modern Healthcare and The
Wall Street Journal.
Full story:
Modern Healthcare (login required),
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Cash incentives for Merseyside hospitals to improve care; Liverpool
Daily Post; 11/27/07: NHS North West in the United Kingdom will
today announce a scheme called ‘advancing quality’ which it hopes will lead
to higher standards of care across the NHS in the North West. The region’s
hospitals, primary care trusts and ambulance trust will receive extra cash
if they meet standards set by NHS North West. An American company, Premier
Inc., has been brought in to oversee the project.
Full story
Six Mass. hospitals lauded for quality, cost efficiency; The Boston
Globe; 11/26/07: Six Massachusetts hospitals have received the 2007
Select Practice National Quality awards from Premier | CareScience, a
nationwide association of not-for profit hospitals.
Full story
'Never' land; Hospitals & Health Networks magazine; 11/07
issue: This story focuses on transparency and the reduction of hospital
errors, featuring comments from the Premier Safety Institute's Gina Pugliese.
Full story
Premier launches expanded hospital quality initiative; Physician's
News Digest; 11/07 issue: This article features a Q&A session with
Premier Vice President and Medical Director Richard Bankowitz, MD, regarding
the Premier QUEST initiative.
Full story
Electronic surveillance systems aid ICPs in outbreak investigation;
Infection Control Today; 10/29/07: According to this article,
Premier’s SafetySurveillor is among several programs that can save valuable
time and remove uncertainty and inconsistency when it comes to tracking
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile, and
other infections.
Full story
Does pay for performance pay?; HFMA; 10/07 issue: This article
discusses the Premier/CMS HQID project and the next steps with P4P.
Full story (.pdf) – Used with
permission of the Healthcare Financial Management Association's The Business
of Caring, www.hfma.org/boc
Premier launches comprehensive quality improvement project; Drug
Topics; 10/22/07: A new project called QUEST by the healthcare
alliance Premier Inc. is an aggressive attempt to develop performance
measures that improve quality and lower costs.
Full story
Bad bugs common; Pros to fight them scarce; The Wall Street Journal
health blog; 10/15/07: This Wall Street Journal health blog posting
highlights a recent Premier survey regarding healthcare associated
infections and features Premier client Virtua Health and Premier's Dan
Peterson, M.D. According to Premier's survey, in which nearly 800 hospitals
responded, almost half called "inadequate staffing" the biggest problem they
faced on the infection front.
Full story
QUEST: Toward a new healthcare paradigm; HealthLeaders Media;
9/27/07:
This bylined article from Premier President and CEO Rick Norling discusses
the keys to transforming the U.S. healthcare system to improve quality,
highlighting the Premier QUEST project.
Full story
Cover story: Shedding light on quality; Trustee Magazine; 9/07
issue: This article looks at today’s top healthcare quality initiatives, including
the Premier/CMS HQID project.
Full story
Solve a unique challenge; Materials Management in Health Care;
9/07 issue: The health care industry has always known there’s been a
need for unique device identification, but not until recent events has the
urgency to act been so great. In October 2006, Premier surveyed its members
to better understand how the industry tracks and records medical device
recalls – and the results were telling. More than 80 percent of health care
professionals believe that an industrywide UDI for medical devices would
enhance patient safety. Other studies prove that billions of dollars could
be saved.
Full story
Hospital food that won't make you sick; The Wall Street Journal;
9/19/07: This article features executives from Premier Foodservice
members Avera Heart Hospital and Baptist Health South Florida discussing
high quality, healthy hospital food offerings at their facilities.
Full story
Involving R.Ph.s helped these hospitals nab Premier award; Drug
Topics; 9/17/07: Pharmacist participation in performance improvement
was indispensable to recipients of the recent Premier Inc. 2007 Award for
Quality.
Full story
Cover story: Is I.T. the key to preventing hospital infections;
Health Data Management; 9/4/07: This article looks at Edgewood,
KY-based St. Elizabeth Medical Center and its successes using Premier’s
SafetySurveillor.
Full story
Premier unveils QUEST program; Healthcare Finance News;
9/1/07: The Premier healthcare alliance is looking for additional
supporters as it plans to launch a project to test the viability of a
program intended to increase patient safety and healthcare quality,
while rewarding top performers with extra payments.
Full
story
Achieving higher value in health care; Greater Charlotte Biz;
9/07 issue: This feature article focuses on Premier’s ability to be
a visionary company under the leadership of Chief Operating Officer
Susan DeVore.
Full
story
Scoring high; Health Executive; 9/07 issue: Any improvement
in clinical quality scores can save patient lives, but only the highest
scores bring financial rewards to hospitals in a pay-for-performance model.
That’s what East Alabama Medical Center and more than 260 other hospitals
that are participating in the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive
Demonstration project have discovered.
("Full story" link no longer active)
Optimizing quality and cost; Repertoire magazine; 8/07 issue:
Premier stands at the “nexus of quality and cost,” and it intends to use
data to help it stay there. As a national GPO, San Diego-based Premier
remains concerned with the price and quality of the products for which it
contracts. But the organization kept its focus on the quality of patient
care at this year’s Breakthroughs Conference in Orlando, FL.
Full story
Bonuses spur 3 Charlotte-area hospitals to improve; The Charlotte
Observer; 8/5/07: Three Charlotte-area hospitals have received
financial rewards the past two years for meeting nationally recognized
standards of care of heart disease, pneumonia, and knee and hip replacement
surgery. Gaston Memorial Hospital in Gastonia, Stanly Regional Medical
Center in Albemarle and Cleveland Regional Medical Center in Shelby are
among 31 Carolinas hospitals – 250 U.S. hospitals total – participating in a pay-for-performance project sponsored by
Premier and CMS.
("Full story" link no longer active)
A report from the Perinatal Innovation Workgroup: Reducing harm to
infants during labor and delivery; Healthcare Technology Horizons,
supplement to Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology; 7/07 issue:
The work to date of the Perinatal Innovation Workgroup, a collaboration of
the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Ascension Health of St. Louis, and
Premier Inc. and its member hospitals, recommends perinatal care bundles be
used when deciding whether to induce labor electively and for managing labor
that is not progressing. The project was initiated to change obstetric
healthcare delivery so that fewer infants are harmed during the delivery
process and that costs from avoidable medical errors and malpractice claims
are reduced. In the article, Premier Consulting Solutions' Kathy Connolly,
RN, M.S. Ed, CPHRM, managing principal of OB and ED Services, with
assistance from Carol E. Davis-Smith, CCE, senior consultant, Premier
Consulting Solutions, examined how technology can be employed to enhance the
implementation of these all-or-nothing bundling initiatives. They looked at
consistent terminology, electronic medical records, simulation technology
and smart pumps.
Full story (.pdf)
– Reprinted with permission from the Association for the Advancement of
Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). This article was first published in
Healthcare Technology Horizons, a supplement to AAMI’s peer-reviewed
journal, Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology. To learn more about AAMI,
visit www.aami.org.
Paying for quality; Healthcare Finance; 7/07 issue: England's
Department of Health recently confirmed that the health economy overseen by
NHS North West would be piloting a pay-for-performance system based on the
Premier/CMS Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration project. If successful,
the system could be rolled out across England.
Full story (.pdf)
Premier announces pay-for-performance initiative; Modern Healthcare; 7/26/07:
A new pay-for-performance project aims to improve patient safety and quality at
approximately 100 hospitals nationwide, Premier announced.
QUEST: High Performing Hospitals – which focuses on quality, efficiency,
safety, with transparency – is a three-year program in which participating
facilities will develop and share best practices in five areas: mortality ratio,
harm avoidance, appropriate care, efficiency and patient satisfaction. The
project, which is not part of a CMS demonstration project, builds on Premier’s
Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration and the Institute for Healthcare
Improvement’s 100,000 Lives and 5 Million Lives campaigns.
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DeVore leads a bottom-up approach to improvement; Charlotte
Business Journal; 7/20/07: As the chief operating officer of
health-care company Premier Inc., Susan DeVore has implemented plans to
integrate all business units, rolled out efficiencies that improved the
bottom line and engaged employees at every level to help make improvements.
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EPEAT products offer major environmental benefits, study finds;
GreenerComputing.com; 7/17/07: In January, President Bush signed an
executive order requiring all federal agencies to buy only Electronic
Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)-registered products in its
computer purchases. Scot Case, EPEAT's outreach and purchaser relations
manager, cited Premier as an example of a company that took EPEAT to heart
from the beginning. "They actually take the Hippocratic oath, which is
'First, do no harm to your patients' very seriously. They specify EPEAT
products because they see the connection with their patients' health."
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Cashing in on performance; Nurseweek magazine; 7/16/07: Nurses
play a key role in Medicare's trend toward awarding pay-for-performance
incentives in hospital settings, but their rewards are coming in the form of
improved patient care standards rather than a paycheck bonus. This article
features top-performing hospitals from the Premier/CMS HQID project,
including Avera Sacred Heart Hospital, St. Joseph's Medical
Center/Carondelet Health, Sisters of Charity, Aurora Health Care, and
Fairview Health System, as well as Premier project manager Diana Jackson.
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The long run; Healthcare Informatics; 7/07 issue: As
the P4P race continues, providers integrate evidence-based measures with
data-gathering systems to cross the finish line. This article features
interviews with Premier and top hospitals participating in the
Premier/CMS P4P project.
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Command performance; Modern Healthcare; 7/9/07: Slowly
turning up the heat for several years now, the CMS has been preparing
hospitals for the first course in a major transformation of the Medicare
reimbursement system called value-based purchasing, or
pay-for-performance. About 250 hospitals presently participating in the
Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration have an inkling of the
transformation at hand.
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Bug-eyed: Hospitals are using automated surveillance systems to
track infections and thwart a new generation of superbugs; Government
IT News; 7/16/07: A handful of Veterans Affairs Department
hospitals are installing automated disease surveillance systems to help
clinicians track HAIs and other infections. The infections result in
hefty financial costs for hospitals. One study of cases complicated by
central-line associated bloodstream infections found that hospitals pay
an average of $26,839 in unreimbursed fees because of extended
admissions and treatment regimens, said Dr. Dan Peterson, vice president
and medical director at Premier, an alliance of nonprofit hospitals that
manages a subscription-based disease-surveillance system.
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Tackling tube misconnections; The Wall Street Journal;
6/27/07: With growing concern about a small but steady number of
tube misconnection cases each year, hospitals, government agencies and
safety organizations are scrambling for solutions. The most significant
initiative is being led by Premier Inc., the purchasing alliance of
1,500 hospitals around the country, which is educating staffers on how
to avoid misconnection errors and working with medical device makers to
redesign equipment so that the connectors linking IV lines and feeding
tubes aren't compatible with each other.
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Standard terminology allows alternative product comparison; supplies
with hazardous ingredients targeted; Materials Management in Health Care;
6/07 issue: Catholic Healthcare West, San Francisco, is committed to
finding safe alternatives for products containing latex, mercury, PVC and
DEPH, but until recently, identifying alternatives was “hit or miss,” says
Keith Callahan, vice president for supply chain management at this
41-hospital system . . . . The problem is being addressed by Premier, and
San Diego-based group purchasing organization, and Cardinal Health, Dublin,
Ohio, the distributor.
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Fighting for survival; Journal of Healthcare Contracting, 6/07
issue: Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport, MA, came close to closing
its doors. Now it’s looking at a surplus. Here’s how the hospital made a
turnaround.
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An end to overtime; The Journal of Healthcare Contracting; 6/07 issue:
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges group purchasing organizations face
today is educating the healthcare industry that they are not, in fact, all
the same. The Journal of Healthcare Contracting interviewed six group
purchasing organizations – including Premier – to learn how each is attempting to differentiate
itself in today’s market.
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Sweetening the pot; HealthLeaders; 6/07 issue: CMS'
decision to extend and expand the successful Hospital Quality Improvement
Demonstration project, which paid an average of $70,000 to hospitals last
year that met or exceeded quality standards, is being applauded by many
healthcare stakeholders. Measurements for the third year of the program will
be reported later this year, but starting in the fourth year, HQID will
begin testing new incentive payments and rolling out new quality measures.
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Burr visit focuses on program; Charlotte Business Journal;
6/8/07: The chief executives of 17 Charlotte-region hospitals met this
week with U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina to discuss the $27
million saved in 2006 through Premier Inc.'s health-care alliance. Burr held
a question-and-answer session with the executives, and talk turned to the
state of health care in North Carolina, along with the importance of
nurturing the industry for the future.
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New tools, old tricks usher in evolution of infection prevention and
control; Healthcare Purchasing News; 6/07 issue: An article in
the June 2007 issue of Healthcare Purchasing News about the prevention and
control of healthcare associated infections quotes Dan Peterson, MD, Mph, VP
and medical director at Premier. "It’s a poor use of human intelligence to
have infection control practitioners looking through hundreds of pages of
lab reports trying to figure out patterns," said Peterson, who previously
spent eight years at the CDC and was active in setting up the electronic
surveillance for reportable diseases. Peterson started Cereplex, which was
recently acquired by Premier.
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Following the leaders; Managed Care magazine; 5/07 issue:
Top pay-for-performance programs point to increased focus on hospital
incentives, efficiency measures, coordination, and standardization. This
article spotlights the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration
Project's success.
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Does where you live determine if you'll live?; USA Today;
5/23/07: Hospital death rates are among the best-kept secrets in
American medicine. That will begin to change in June, when the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to post the first broad
comparison of the death rates for heart attack and heart failure on its
website, Hospital Compare (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov). The effort also marks
the beginning of a broader transformation of medicine, one in which
hospitals and doctors will be routinely judged on their performance. The
agency has been conducting a pilot pay-for-performance study with the
Premier Inc. network of non-profit hospitals, which involves about 260
hospitals in 37 states.
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CMS P4P research finds consistency to be key; FierceHealthcare;
5/8/07: How can hospitals benefit from the research being done by CMS on
pay for performance? In part, just by accepting that improving quality
results requires a high level of commitment, according to Richard Norling,
CEO of Premier, which runs the P4P pilot on CMS's behalf.
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Premier honored for ethics in business; Charlotte Business
Journal; 4/26/07: Premier Inc. is among three Charlotte
companies named the 2007 recipients of the Charlotte Ethics in Business
Awards. The awards, sponsored by the Charlotte chapter of the Society of
Financial Services Professionals, were presented Thursday. The awards
are presented annually to honor companies that demonstrate a commitment
to ethical business practices in their operations, management
philosophies and responses to crises or challenges.
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Automated surveillance systems can significantly help lower
hospital-acquired infections; Drug Topics; 4/16/07: As many as
100,000 patients die every year from hospital-acquired infections (HAIs),
according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. It doesn't have to be
that way. Tools exist that can significantly lower HAI mortality and morbidity
rates and reduce an associated $6 billion in excess annual health costs. One
powerful tool is the use of automated surveillance systems designed to track
antibiotic overuse and underuse, as well as infection patterns. A recent survey
by the Charlotte, N.C.-based healthcare alliance Premier Inc. found that of
about 150 hospital-based infection control specialists, four out of five believe
such technology would lower HAI rates at their facility.
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CMS pay-for-performance pilot engages R.Ph.s; Drug Topics;
4/16/07: The clinical success of an ongoing pay-for-performance (P4P)
pilot project by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requires
extensive participation by health-system pharmacists. Launched in October
2003, the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID)
project involves more than 260 hospitals, which submit data to Premier for
validation and analysis.
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Premier, CareScience deal's long-term potential; Modern Healthcare;
4/5/07: The acquisition last week by Premier of the CareScience clinical
data-mining unit of Quovadx will expand the reach and the breadth of
services for customers of both companies, but it will take several months
and maybe as much as a year before those customers can benefit from the
synergy, according to Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president for Premier
Healthcare Informatics, the data services and analysis division of the San
Diego-based group purchasing organization.
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Commentary: Pay for performance movement gains evidence; Healthcare
Finance News; 4/1/07: "Regardless of how it’s funded, pay for
performance, or value-based purchasing, is coming. Congress has mandated
that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services develop a plan by late
2008 for hospital value-based purchasing. Recently, the Institute of
Medicine urged CMS to gradually phase in P4P nationwide as a way to
accelerate quality improvement. CMS is hard at work developing that plan,
and its Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration project with the Premier
healthcare alliance will be one model they examine closely" writes Rick Norling, president and CEO of Premier; and Stephanie Alexander, senior vice
president of Premier Healthcare Informatics.
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CMS extends hospital quality incentive demonstration; Healthcare
Finance News; 4/1/07: A program that provides financial incentives
to hospitals that meet quality of care standards has been financially
restructured and extended three years by the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services. Premier Inc. ’s Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration,
under which top-performing hospitals have received cash rewards for quality
improvements, has been modified to make more participating hospitals
eligible for rewards.
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Cover story: Businessman of group purchasing: Premier's Mike Alkire believes
IDNs can improve both financially and clinically – with the right plan;
The Journal of Healthcare Contracting; 4/07 issue: In many ways,
Mike Alkire reflects the way group purchasing organizations are
evolving. His background is business- and information-systems oriented,
not hospital-purchasing- or materials-management-oriented. While keenly
aware of the need for low contract prices, he expresses his vision for
Premier in terms of operational efficiencies and greater shareholder
value. And he embraces the broader goal that Premier has set for itself
– helping its members improve their financial and clinical performance.
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Automating infection surveillance efforts; Materials Management in
Health Care; 4/07 issue: A recent survey of 150 infection control
specialists concluded that automated surveillance systems (computer or
Web-based programs that track patient infections) can protect patients from
hospital-acquired diseases. However, the same survey also found that only
about 13 percent of the respondents use the technology, according to
Premier, the GPO that sponsored the survey. Dan Peterson, M.D., Premier vice
president and medical director, discusses this apparent contradiction and
offers advice on how infection control departments can justify the hundreds
of thousands of dollars required for an automated surveillance system.
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Premier alliance chosen for national data project; Charlotte
Business Journal; 3/23/07: The bunker-like technology department of
Premier Inc.'s Charlotte office, which can quickly process and analyze
millions of patient records, will be kept busy by a federal program designed
to improve quality and outcomes at hospitals across the country. Premier was
recently tapped for another three-year run of a test program initiated by
the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal administrator of
Medicare and Medicaid.
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Premier receives Baldrige quality award; The San Diego Union-Tribune;
3/14/07: Vice President Dick Cheney presented the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award trophy yesterday to Premier Inc., a San Diego-based
health care group purchasing organization. It was one of three 2006 winners
of the federal government's most prestigious business honor. Premier Chief
Executive Officer Richard Norling accepted the award for the company during
a ceremony at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.
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U.S. laying footing for health care efficiencies; Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel; 3/3/07: Throughout the economy, the practices
are commonplace: Providing information on prices and quality. Using
information technology to become more efficient. Rewarding good
performance. In health care, they come close to being radical proposals.
Those seemingly simple ideas are the cornerstones of a nascent
initiative by the federal government to remake the $2 trillion health
care system. Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, is scheduled to visit Milwaukee on Wednesday to
promote that change and what is being called the "Value-Driven Health
Care Initiative." In Wisconsin, Aurora's hospitals are among the roughly 260
throughout the country participating in a CMS/Premier
pay-for-performance project.
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CMS extends, restructures hospital quality incentive program;
Healthcare Finance News; 3/2/07: A program that provides financial
incentives to hospitals that meet quality of care standards has been
financially restructured and extended three years by the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services. Premier Inc.'s Hospital Quality Incentive
Demonstration, under which top-performing hospitals have received cash
rewards for quality improvements, has been modified to make more
participating hospitals eligible for rewards.
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Cover story: Inside the Premier/CMS pay-for-performance project;
Hospitals & Health Networks; 3/07 issue: Pay for performance is no
passing fad. It’s real and it’s here to stay. Private payers, employers and
the federal government are all devising ways to pay hospitals to improve
patient care. The 800-pound gorilla in payment policy, the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services, under congressional mandate, is devising a
plan to deploy pay for performance on a broad scale by fiscal 2009. Under
the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration, a joint effort between CMS and
Premier Inc., quality indicators for 260 participating hospitals rose by
11.8 percent over two years.
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Premier leaders on Charlotte radio show; WBT-AM; 2/24/07: Premier Chief Operating Officer Susan DeVore and Stephanie Alexander, senior
vice president, Premier Healthcare Informatics; along with Jan Mathews,
director of clinical performance improvement at Gaston Memorial Hospital,
were featured on a Charlotte radio show – WBT 1110 AM's "Health Headlines"
with Stacey Simms. The discussion focused on Premier's pay-for-performance
project and Premier's success in helping hospitals safely reduce the cost of
care.
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Software identifies hospital infections; The Charlotte Observer; 2/14/07: Dr. Dan Peterson heard "Gee, that's nifty" a lot five years ago when he
pitched his computer software that helps hospitals track deadly illnesses
germinating in their buildings.
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Pay for performance: Will it help nurses reap rewards in patient care?;
Nurse.com; 2/12/07: The Daughters of Charity system took part in a
three-year Medicare P4P demonstration project by San Diego-based Premier
Inc., a nonprofit healthcare alliance that evaluated the performances for 33
quality care measures for five conditions at 270 hospitals in 38 states.
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I.T. tracks pay for performance; Health Data Management; 2/9/07: Patient
care at 260 hospitals participating in a pay-for-performance project is
improving and those facilities are receiving additional compensation as a
result, according to survey results from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services. CMS announced that it would award incentive payments of $8.7
million to 115 of the top-performing hospitals. Premier Inc., a San
Diego-based provider coalition and group purchasing organization, and CMS
are managing the P4P project at the 260 hospitals.
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Post enhancements: Is your PACS all it can be?; Medical Imaging
magazine; 2/07 issue: "It should be no surprise that PACS, like any
other new technology, requires constant fine-tuning. The good news is that
it continues to get better and better. Focus on opportunities, take
advantage of technology changes and new levels of integration to bury all
those workarounds, and look strategically toward the future," writes Vicki
Peterson, director of the PACS consulting program for Premier Consulting
Solutions.
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Hospitals get bonuses for quality of care; Government Health IT; 1/29/07: A demonstration project that Medicare officials describe as groundbreaking
has improved the quality of patient care at participating hospitals, and
according to hospital officials, saved the lives of 1,284 heart attack
patients.
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Hackensack hospital keeps its top rating in U.S. program; AP/The Philadelphia
Inquirer; 1/27/07: For the second year in a row, Hackensack University
Medical Center has emerged as the top hospital in a nationwide Medicare
program meant to demonstrate whether financial incentives can improve
patient care.
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Bonus pay by Medicare lifts quality; The New York Times; 1/25/07:
Paying a hospital to do the right thing is a lot harder than it looks. The 266
hospitals participating in a Medicare experiment that pays them more to follow
medical recommendations have steadily improved the quality of patient care. The
latest results in the three-year experiment show that more heart attack patients
are getting aspirin when they arrive at the hospital, for example, and more
patients are getting vaccines to prevent pneumonia. Premier Inc. is managing the
project.
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Rise in heart failure means increased prices for CRMs; Materials
Management in Health Care; 1/07: According to the American Heart
Association, heart failure is a major unresolved public health concern with more
than 5 million individuals in the United States affected by this condition.
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Making the grade with pay for performance: 7 lessons from best-performing
hospitals; HFM Magazine; 12/06: "There’s a potential for a billion dollars in savings to Medicare. I mean, it's huge," says Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president and general manager for Premier, a not-for-profit hospital alliance that managed the demonstration project.
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The move up; Repertoire; 12/06 issue: "Somebody’s got to
mind the store," is how David Christensen describes his job as executive
director of Lincoln, Neb.-based Alegent NPG HealthLink LLC ("HealthLink").
That store and its services have gotten bigger in the last few months, as
the organization has made the transition from regional group purchasing
organization to hospital alliance and shareholder in Premier Inc. It
comprises 47 hospitals and roughly 350 non-acute-care locations, with an
annual purchasing volume of $200 million.
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The fundamentals of robotic surgical systems, Biomedical
Instrumentation & Technology, 11-12/06 issue: Over the next
decade, the number of minimally invasive surgical procedures performed
will continue to rise while the number of invasive procedures that have a
noninvasive option will decline. This trend will have a major impact on the
number of robotic surgical systems in use. (Reprinted with permission from
Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal by the
Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. Visit
www.aami.org to learn more about AAMI or
to view BI&T’s current issue.)
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San Diego firm honored for its role with Medicare; The San Diego Union-Tribune; 11/22/06: A San Diego company that helped develop a Medicare program that rewards hospitals for providing better service has won the 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Premier was one of three companies to receive the prize, announced yesterday by President Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
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WMHS part of Premier alliance to cut operating expenses; Cumberland
(MD) Times-News; 11/19/06: The Western Maryland Health
System has joined six other not-for-profit hospitals in Maryland and to form
an alliance aimed at reducing operating expenses through joint participation
in the national and regional group purchasing contracts of Premier Inc. and
shared service initiatives.
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Catching the P4P wave; Healthcare Informatics; 11/06 issue: As a participant in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services/Premier Inc., P4P Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration project, Perez's health system scored in the top decile in all areas among the participating hospital organizations.
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Premier acquires infection I.T. vendor; Health Data Management; 10/23/06: Premier Inc. has acquired Germantown, Md.-based Cereplex Inc. to assist hospitals to reduce infection and track potential overuse of antibiotics.
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Hallmark of quality care: Efficiency; USA Today; 10/20/06: According to an analysis by Premier Inc., a private company collaborating with Medicare, hospitals nationwide could save up to $1.3 billion if they met even three out of four recommended standards for patients with these five conditions.
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The patient safety movement finally is saving lives and raising hopes; Medscape; 10/20/06: Premier, Inc., an alliance of nonprofit hospitals and healthcare systems, announced that its 3-year demonstration project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is resulting in better care at lower costs. Approximately 260 hospitals are participating in this pay-for-performance project.
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Collaboration cuts costs; Healthcare Finance News; 10/01/06:
A small investment in Premier’s Supply Chain Collaborative Breakthrough
Series is paying big dividends for the three-hospital Genesis Health System
in Illinois and Iowa.
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Premier series saved $47 million; Materials Management in Health Care;
10/06: Hospitals and health systems that participated in Premier’s fifth
annual Supply Chain Collaborative Breakthrough Series reported savings of
$47 million – 75 percent over their goal of $27.3 million.
Full story
Purchasing alliance feels the power; Buffalo-area hospitals band
together to save; Materials Management in Health Care; 10/06: An
interview with Kevin Connor, Executive Director and CEO of the Western New
York Purchasing Alliance, LLC, through which competing hospitals in western
New York state came together three years ago – with Premier’s help – to
leverage better pricing and shared services.
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Back-to-basics measures save lives: Quality care doesn't mean more expensive care;
Materials Management in Health Care; 9/14/06: An interview with Donald Berwick, president and CEO at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, regarding the Premier/CMS Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration pay-for-performance project.
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Paying to get it right; Chicago Tribune via Fort Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel; 9/5/06: Last year, officials at Premier Inc., a nonprofit hospital alliance, announced that a Medicare-sponsored pilot program to improve care had saved the lives of about 235 heart attack patients at some 260 hospitals across the country in its first year. The hospitals took many steps to improve care, some as simple as giving more heart-attack patients aspirin when they were first admitted.
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Study of Medicare patients finds many lives saved by hospital quality measures; SeniorJournal.com; 9/2/06: Wider adoption of quality measures used in a groundbreaking Medicare pay-for-performance demonstration project could save thousands of lives and reduce hospitals costs, according to an analysis released yesterday by the Premier Inc. healthcare alliance.
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Program aims to improve hospitals; (Fort Worth, TX) Star-Telegram; 9/1/06: If U.S. hospitals more widely adopted some of the federal Medicare program's pay-for-performance goals, they could prevent almost 5,700 deaths and save as much as $1.35 billion a year, according to a study released Thursday by Premier Inc.
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Demonstration project claims $1 billion in potential savings; Healthcare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement;
9/06: New data from Premier Inc.'s pay-for-performance demonstration project
with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) indicate that improving
the care of pneumonia and heart bypass patients alone can save as much as $1
billion a year, as well as thousands of lives.
Full story
Pay for performance could save lives, money: eWeek, 8/31/06: Premier, a health alliance of more than 200 nonprofit hospitals and health care systems, recently released results from its pay-for-performance demonstration project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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DRG-based contracting: A theoretical model for low margin service
lines; Healthcare Purchasing News; 8/06 issue: With regard to
orthopedic service lines, we know that for most hospitals the cost of
orthopedic implant supplies have to be in the region of 35% of the DRG
payment in order for that service line to be a profitable business venture.
What about other service lines where the cost of a few supplies accounts for
a very high percentage of the DRG? Dawn Terry RN, BSN, MBA, Senior Clinical
Associate, Cardiovascular Services at Premier Inc., explains that profit
margins continue to decline despite product cost savings through
negotiations and utilization.
Full story
Study correlates high-quality care and savings, Healthcare IT News; 6/22/06: Early results from a joint government-private sector pay-for-performance project suggest that improving patient care can save money.
Full story
Report: Pay-for-performance has the potential to improve care, Health Imaging News,
4/06: Pay-for-performance has the potential to improve the quality of care given to patients – and in some instances save lives
– according to a new white paper published by the Premier Inc. healthcare alliance.
Full story
Medicare says bonuses can improve hospital care; The New York Times; 11/15/05: Linking hospital payments to the quality of patient care can significantly improve the level of care, Medicare officials said yesterday in announcing the first results of the government's experimental performance-based bonus system for hospitals.
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