News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797

Premier healthcare alliance experts to lead discussions on healthcare pay-for-performance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, hospital materials management

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (October 2, 2007) – Leaders from the Premier healthcare alliance will speak at conferences around the country in October, sharing insights regarding pay-for-performance (P4P) and patient safety based on Premier’s Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) pay-for-performance project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Premier experts will also discuss the company’s 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, as well as best practices for materials management in hospitals and human resources solutions.

Premier President and CEO Richard A. Norling will discuss the Baldrige Award as a keynote speaker at the 16th Annual ASQ Service Quality Conference October 1 in San Diego, CA, and at the 2007 North Carolina Conference for Excellence on October 24 in Raleigh, NC.

Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president for Premier Healthcare Informatics, will also discuss the Baldrige Award as a featured speaker at the American Health Information Management Association 79th Convention and Exhibit on October 10 in Philadelphia, PA.

Chief Administrative Officer Jena Abernathy will cover solutions for human resources issues at the Buck Consultants Conference on October 15 in New York City.

Additional events at which Premier representatives will be featured include:

American Nurses Credentialing Center for Magnet Hospitals, October 3, Atlanta;
West Virginia Medical Institute Annual Retreat, October 7, Charleston, WV;
Insurance Consumer Affairs Exchange, October 9, San Diego;
ASHRM's 2007 Annual Conference & Exhibition, October 12, Chicago;
South Carolina Society of Hospital Materials Management, October 18, Columbia, SC. The HQID is the first national project of its kind, designed to determine if economic incentives to hospitals are effective at improving the quality of inpatient care. As part of the project, more than 250 hospitals submit clinical quality data to Premier through the Perspective™ data warehouse. CMS, which approved a three-year extension of the project in February, then uses the data to identify and reward top performers in five clinical areas. Premier recently launched “QUEST: High Performing Hospitals” based on many of the same principles used in the HQID project. The goal of QUEST, a three-year program, is to improve patient safety and quality in the nation’s hospitals while safely reducing healthcare costs. QUEST participating hospitals will report data to Premier on a set of clearly defined performance measures encompassing aspects of quality, efficiency, safety and patient satisfaction. Premier will analyze the data, facilitate sharing of best practices, and provide incentives for top-performing hospitals.

About Premier, 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Serving 1,700 hospitals and more than 47,000 other healthcare sites, Premier is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates the one of the nation's largest healthcare purchasing networks, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.