Premier Inc. Quality Improvement Collaborative Members Outperform Non-QUEST^® Hospitals by Nearly 30 Percent in Realizing Value-Based Payments

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Health systems participating in Premier Inc.’s (NASDAQ:PINC) QUEST^® collaborative were 29 percent more likely to achieve value-based purchasing incentive payments from Medicare, according to a matched cohort analysis of the most recent FY 2018 data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (VBP) rewards acute care hospitals based on the quality of care provided to Medicare beneficiaries. Hospitals are measured on a set of outcomes metrics, including mortality rates, complications, healthcare-associated infections, patient safety, patient experience, process, efficiency and cost reduction.

“As the healthcare world increasingly shifts to value-based payments, health systems need to be confident in their ability to deliver high-quality, cost effective care,” said Madeleine Biondolillo, MD, Vice President of Quality and Safety at Premier. “QUEST has demonstrated success by enabling health systems to effectively deliver value-based care by providing a proven methodology for performance improvement that is based on national data and peer-to-peer benchmarking, as well as sharing and scaling best practices and improvement strategies. In doing so, QUEST participants are setting the standard for highly-reliable care.”

QUEST is a nationally-recognized collaborative that was launched in 2008 to help health systems provide high-value care across U.S. communities. Participants have reported avoiding more than 200,000 deaths and saving $18 billion in costs.

QUEST 2020, the next iteration of the program that launched in 2017, leverages learnings from QUEST to extend performance improvement efforts beyond hospital walls by offering assistance around compliance and specialized support for health systems to thrive in today’s healthcare economy. A key feature of QUEST 2020 is assisting all providers to understand and achieve success within emerging alternative payment models, as well as expanding value-based payment programs in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).

The QUEST collaborative has been nationally recognized by the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission as a recipient of the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety & Quality Award.

Methodology

The methodology used for comparing QUEST members versus non-QUEST participants was a multi-stage process. Pulled from CMS’s list of VBP scores, hospitals were then matched QUEST to non-QUEST, using facility size, region, population, teaching status and facility type. This resulted in 484 matched results, 242 QUEST participants and 242 non-QUEST participants, which were then categorized as winners (scores above 1) or losers (scores below 1). The proportion of winners was then calculated for each group and compared.