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Premier Inc.
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More than 30 hospitals join expansion of Premier healthcare alliance QUEST® collaborative
Close to 200 providers now part of project addressing health reform goal of improving quality while reducing costs
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (November 12, 2009) – More than 30 hospitals have joined the expansion of the Premier healthcare alliance's QUEST®: High Performing Hospitals collaborative. Approximately 200 hospitals representing 31 states are now participating in this project, which is currently linking the two main goals of health reform proposals being considered by Congress: quality improvement and cost reduction.
Developed in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), QUEST is designed to springboard hospitals to new levels of performance and inform public policies with tangible results. To accomplish this, QUEST benchmarked participating facilities using data from Premier's clinical database to determine the "baseline" level of performance in cost, mortality and evidence-based care delivery.
Hospitals were then challenged to overcome the main factors that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs, and measure themselves against one another to achieve top performance based on the following goals:
- Save lives: Eliminate avoidable hospital mortalities.
- Safely reduce the cost of care: Reduce the costs for each patient's hospitalization.
- Deliver the most reliable and effective care: Ensure that patients receive every recommended evidence-based care measure.
- Improve patient safety (year 2 measure): Prevent incidents of harm in more than 30 categories, including healthcare-acquired infections and birth injuries.
- Increase satisfaction (year 2 measure): Improve the patient's overall care experience and loyalty to the care providing facility.
"Through participation in QUEST, we are taking the initiative to drive cost and quality improvements, independent of healthcare legislation and reform," said Mark Eustis, president and CEO of Fairview Health Services, which has five new hospitals participating in the QUEST collaborative. "We look forward to working with representatives of the collaborative, both existing and new, to help drive overall improvements in the way healthcare is delivered nationally."
Results from the first year of the project released on October 21 show that the original 157 QUEST hospitals have saved an estimated total of 8,043 lives and $577 million in one year. Of the approximately 2.3 million patients treated annually in these hospitals, 24,818 additional patients received treatments that met the highest quality patient care standards when compared to baseline performance at the outset of the project.
According to a Premier analysis of these Year 1 results, if non-participating hospitals were able to achieve the improvements found among the QUEST participants, they could save an estimated additional 52,760 lives.
"Results from the project suggest that participation in QUEST is helping providers achieve reliable results that accelerate their ability to provide high quality care at a lower cost," said Carolyn Scott, R.N., M.ED., M.H.A., Premier vice president of Performance Improvement and Quality. "New hospitals in QUEST will have the opportunity to learn from these successes to the benefit of the entire group."
QUEST also benefits from an Advisory Panel of experts from 20 of the country's top healthcare organizations, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, National Quality Forum, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
In an effort to test the effectiveness of new healthcare technologies as a part of QUEST, Premier created the QUEST Comparative Innovation Program (QCIP). The QCIP solutions will be tested in the real world and measured by QUEST hospitals to determine their effectiveness in improving the quality, reliability, safety and cost-effectiveness of care. The solutions address key issues in healthcare, including improving emergency response times, enhancing doctor/nurse communications and preventing healthcare-acquired infections such as MRSA, UTIs and ventilator-associated pneumonia.
Hospitals joining the expansion of QUEST are:
- Baptist Memorial Health Care (Memphis, Tenn.) – added two hospitals for a total of seven;
- Catholic Healthcare Partners/Humility Of Mary Health Partners (Youngstown, Ohio) – added three hospitals for a total four;
- Cooley Dickinson Hospital (Northampton, Mass.);
- Fairview Health Services (Minneapolis) – five hospitals;
- Frederick Memorial Healthcare System (Frederick, Md.) – one hospital;
- Georgetown Hospital System (Georgetown, S.C.) – two hospitals;
- John C. Lincoln Hospitals (Phoenix) – two hospitals;
- Lafayette General Medical Center (Lafayette, La.);
- Medical University South Carolina (Charleston, S.C.);
- Monongalia General Hospital (Morgantown, W.Va.);
- Mountain States Health Alliance (Johnson City, Tenn.) – added one hospital for a total of six;
- North Mississippi Health Services (Tupelo, Miss.) – added five hospitals for a total of six;
- Pikeville Medical Center (Pikeville, Ky.);
- Salem Hospital (Salem, Ore.);
- St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System (Savannah, Ga.) – two hospitals;
- Texas Health Resources (Arlington, Texas) – added one hospital for a total of 13;
- West Virginia University Hospitals (Fairmont, W.Va.).
About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals
and 80,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead
the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals,
health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation's most
comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and
operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping
deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National
Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in
Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in
Washington.
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